In the 21st century, modern costume is one of the decisive accents that form the image of a person and his perception by the people around him, as well as emphasize the relevance of the folk proverb: “Greeted by clothes, escorted by the mind”.

In contrast to the modern one, the national costume characterizes the individuality of the culture of a given nation. In addition, speaking about the national costume, it should be not forgotten that even the most inconspicuous detail of it carries the cultural code of an entire people and can serve as an encrypted message.

Our interlocutor is Lilit Melikyan — the director of the “Teryan” Cultural Center.

Interviewed by Armine Aharonyan.

— Lilit, perhaps the question will seem somewhat unusual: what is the national costume for you?

— For me, the national costume is a means of self-expression of my culture, it is my attitude to culture, my concept of taste, and ideally it is one of the types of decorative art.

— As far as I know, your first suit is “Taraz”. Did you sew it for yourself?

— Yes, everyone liked it, everyone asked: “Who is she?” I sewed the costume without copying the outfit of the artist and ethnographer Lusik Aghuletsi, and with the traditionally correct approach to the outfit itself; I stylized it — it was an Artsakh costume, I’m from Nagorno-Karabakh, after all. I myself really like this contrasting combination of red and green. In this costume, I was on the air with the fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev in the program “Fashionable Sentence”. People rent this suit from me in order to be photographed in it; but most of time I keep it by me — this is my lucky talisman.

— If you were asked to describe the image of a modern business Armenian woman, what kind it would be?

— In general, I believe that the mentality of an Armenian woman, which has been created for centuries, was inclined towards the image of a domestic woman, i.e. housewives, a skilled cook, a good mother and a loving wife, but modern life makes it possible, without discarding these responsibilities, to do what she loves to do, if she has one.

I believe that I am at that age and position that I cannot bring myself to go to a party in order to make a checkmark, all this is necessary until the age of forty, and after that you can afford to do what you want.

— That is, internal growth leads to the fact that a person decides and does what he wants?

— Actually, God decides for us, I am a very God-fearing person, while I believe that this feeling of calmness in life comes when a person finds his way of life. For me personally, everything is divided into ‘up to thirty-five years’ and ‘after’. It was at the age of thirty-five that everything changed for me: a child was born, I lost a very important person for me and realized that a woman should, firstly, correctly feel her feminine principle, sort out her feelings within herself, and then go into business, because when you are a business woman, and there is no loved one nearby, then you will waste your energy in the wrong direction. Having found harmony within yourself, you will show it in your deeds. By artificially forcing yourself to do something, you will not achieve success.

— Lilit, tell us in a nutshell how the idea of ​​a cultural center came about?

— The authorship of the idea of ​​creating a cultural center belongs not to me, but to our chairman, art critic, Teryanologist Arushan Hakobyan, that’s why the cultural center is called that way. But, since I began to lead it, I brought my hobbies into the center, and, among other things, began to develop the direction of decorative art and design. My many acquaintances-businessmen told me “it’s so well that you considered to make national costumes”, but in fact I didn’t come up with it, I just did what I love. So I just want to tell by my example, example of my cultural center that in fact, if you do your favorite thing and do it with devotion for a long time, then you will definitely achieve positive results.

At the age of thirteen we read books, collected materials, went to museums, and also conducted research activities, as a result of which we could write a book and finish our work, but this was not enough for us and we, completely without any commercial background, made their own collection of costumes, after which it turned out that many would like to buy them. Basically, these were Armenian communities or Armenian churches in different cities of the world, where parents could bring their children and acquaint them with this part of our history. And already when we started to work at that level in order to use our knowledge in stylization, we involved ethnographers. Today, everything that makes me ‘Lilik Melikyan’ is connected with my country, its way of life, its people.

— What is the principle of the center?

— In our center, each person does his own business, but at the same time they are closely interconnected, so it comes out a so-called collective work. Everybody knows all the things, but everyone does what he knows very well.

— What contributed to the fact that you stayed in Armenia?

— Sure, it was love. Only it can keep me somewhere. In my case, it was love for a man, but not only that, also love for the people who surround me, love for my work, for my homeland.

I have been in different countries, and I still have offers to move there. When I studied abroad, I still felt this affection to Armenia. Now I’m not going anywhere at all. I realized this after last year’s four-day war. My brother lives in Moscow, and my friend was a participant in the April military events, and when my brother said: “Come on, move to Moscow,” I refused. If before I could still think about leaving somewhere, now I can’t. I got an intuitive feeling that in 10 years Armenia will be the most comfortable country among small countries. There are people who correctly think that our people have a chance to move away from the prevalence of material over spiritual values.

— You mentioned in our conversation that you have your own workers in the regions. What are they doing?

— Mostly they carry out embroidery. We place orders and pay for their work. Today, in my opinion, the big problem is the devastation of border villages. In addition, today it is not as difficult to make money in Yerevan as in the regions, and we all must, as far as we can, help people not to leave their homes.

— What is “Taraz Art”?

— When I tried to register my website and tried to buy a domain for Taraz, it turned out that such a name already existed, and then, after long-time deliberation, the idea of ​​“Taraz Art” came to my mind. We have finally acquired the copyright and 7 items from what we produce are already protected. And I will even soon try to sue in order to protect our copyrights, so that people know – it is forbidden to take and use other people’s thoughts, ideas, works.