Taraboner "New Spring" Fashion

Author: Dar'Jen Ab Owain
Published: July 20 2021 - Tar Valon Times Blog Link

This post contains spoilers for New Spring.

The fashion of the various nations are explored within New Spring. Some are only mentioned in general, while others are described in greater detail. We are given several examples of Taraboner fashion.

Common features of Taraboner men’s fashion are mustaches and the use of transparent veils. One of the Green Warders “had a thick Taraboner mustache” (p. 115). Among the travelers in Tar Valon were “Taraboner men from the far west, wearing veils that covered their faces to the eyes, and were transparent enough to show their thick mustaches clearly” (p. 63).

Women’s Taraboner fashion included beaded braids. Ludice Daneen, a Yellow Aes Sedai, had her face framed “by brightly beaded Taraboner braids that hung to her waist” (p. 120). Cetalia Delarme, a Blue Aes Sedai, wore her “steel-grey hair in a multitude of blue-beaded braids that hung to her waist” and that rattled “softly as she tilted her head thoughtfully” (p. 174-175). “A multitude of thin Taraboner braids” surrounded the face if the Accepted, Sarene Nemdahl, who was unconscious of her great beauty and had “remarkably little tact for a shopkeeper’s daughter” (p. 71-72).

Pale tones may have been popular in Taraboner fashion. Cetalia wore “sky-blue silk” (p. 174). In Siuan Sanche’s Accepted room was “a small, square Taraboner rug woven in faded blue and green stripes” (p. 37). While a rug is not clothing, it could be an indicator of popular colors and designs.

Taraboner fashion may have a preference for pale colors. For men, mustaches and veils were typical; and for women, waist length, beaded braids were common.