mostly-mundane-atla:

An Avatar Fan’s Guide to Kuspuks

A kuspuk is a garment worn by Inupiaq and Yup'ik peoples. Shocked by our lack of nudity taboo within the warmth of our homes, missionaries in the 19th century gave us casual garments of lightweight cotton to dress in. When the wives and mothers made their own versions, they cut the fabric to fit the silhouette of traditional parkas and reduce waste. Kuspuks were made in such a way that they could be worn over the parka as a smock. The fabric was easier to wash than skins were and large pockets could be more easily added to it.

Kuspuks also look nothing like the traditional clothes from other cultures that show up in Avatar, many of which have defined waistlines, fitted or flared sleeves, and low hemlines. It’s hard not to be resentful that they’ll take words from our languages (even straight up naming characters after our villages) and scan the first few pages of google image for visual details, but they won’t include aspects of the cultures many of us grew up with. I hope that I can help make fandom spaces a little less barren of kuspuks with this post.

Basic How To Draw

• To draw a kuspuk you first need a character to draw it on, so start by sketching a figure. A better one than mine if you can, I’m a bit out of practice

Note: kuspuks are made to allow freedom of movement as there’s always something to do in the village. This means any pose works for a kuspuk, it’s just a matter of figuring out how the body pushes the fabric around. The basic pose I’ve used is only for simplicity’s sake.

• The body of a kuspuk should be loose enough to accommodate several warmer layers underneath even if it’s worn without any of those layers. Versatility is a key feature! The only reason you’d make a kuspuk not able to fit over a warm fur parka is if it’s for a doll. The hem of a man’s kuspuk typically falls just below the hip, as it’s made to be worn as a shirt rather than a gown. For this demonstration, i’m drawing a woman’s kuspuk which is typically longer, but I’ve marked where the hem would be on a man’s. (Even women’s kuspuks aren’t always this long, this is more to show how long they can be)

• Sleeves should also be roomy. This allows movement and layering underneath and also traps in air which makes for decent insulation even without fur. There tends to be a bit of a gather at the cuff both to keep the sleeves from being caught on anything, and to keep the warmth in. Sleeves are long, reaching the wrist, but can be pushed up.

Note: creases in the sleeves are inevitable irl and can be very fun to draw.

• Perhaps the most distinct part of the kuspuk is the large pockets (or singular pocket) at the center front. You may notice in old photos that not every kuspuk had pockets, but these days it’s pretty rare to not have them on a finished kuspuk. The pockets come in many shapes and sizes; the ones i’ve drawn in my example are the the ones most familiar to me. Most kuspuks are hooded and hood styles, like pocket styles, can vary. Women’s kuspuks sometimes have a pleated skirt or flounce. The length varies, but even notably long kuspuks rarely fall much lower than the knees.

Hemline variations

• As mentioned, men’s kuspuks are generally shorter than women’s. While a longer feminine kuspuk may be worn as a dress, a shorter masculine kuspuk would be worn as the top of an ensemble. These days (and in the more recent past) a man might wear his kuspuk over jeans at a casual event or over slacks at a formal event.
• The flounce sometimes found on a woman’s kuspuk could be longer or shorter depending on personal preference and access to material. Single tier designs are most common, but there’s no rule or expectation limiting it to only one. There is a Lomen Brothers photograph of an Inupiaq woman on the beach wearing a kuspuk with a double-tiered flounce with generous ribbon trim.
• Kuspuks were designed to waste as little as possible and so were typically made entirely of rectangles, save a few pieces that needed more attention to shape like the hood. But there are always exceptions to the general rule. Some kuspuks have a U-shaped hem with small notches at the sides rather than being even all the way around.

Pocket variations

• Sometimes the two large pockets at the centerfront are one large pocket made of one pannel, normally of the same fabric but sometimes a contrasting one.
• The top of the pocket can be asymetrical, even with trim to decorate and draw attention to it.
• Sometimes the front pattern piece is copied, pocket openings are cut out, and it is sewn onto the kuspuk
• The pocket can also take up a generous bottom portion of the front, being more notably wide that tall
• The openings of the pockets may be adorned with trim, but don’t have to be

Trim

• Rick-rick, a wavy ribbon trim, is very common
• Silk (or polyester with a satiny finish) and velvet ribbon is quite popular too
• Geometric tablet woven trim
• Jacquard trim, metallic and floral are both commonly prefered
• Scallop lace, but used sparingly in comparison.
• Trim can be placed on pockets (as previously mentioned), cuffs, hems, hoods, flounces, and I’ve even seen kuspuks with trim in V shapes on the shoulder.
• One specific decorative element is a bit of ribbon sewn at either side of the neck, just below the hood of a woman’s kuspuk. It can be tempting to guess that these are draw strings like you might find on a hoodie, but they are only sewn there decoratively and don’t close the hood at all even if they are tied. Likely this is a callback to the white triangular patches that would be sewn at the same spot of a fur parka, meant to represent a walrus’s tusks.

Additional notes

• Kuspuks can be made of any fabric, whatever is available and preferably inexpensive. Solid colors and muted patterns like stripes have always been popular. Florals are sometimes used, but mostly for women’s kuspuks.
• A white kuspuk with very little or no trim would be worn by men for hunting. Sometimes even men who don’t hunt for subsistence will wear a white kuspuk for drumming or dancing or formal events because of its association with providing for the family, something very valued by us.
• Women’s kuspuks usually have more trim than men’s, but this is not an absolute rule. A man may enjoy fancy metalic trim on his kuspuk as well as a woman.
• Early on in the Inupiat adopting Euro-American style dress, a woman may have worn her kuspuk with wool stockings. These days, they may be worn with jeans at an informal event, or tights (slacks are sometimes worn but not as commonly) at a formal event. Another way women may wear a kuspuk is with leggings and ballet flats, which is especially popular with teenage girls and women in their 20s
• A kuspuk worn over a parka looks very different from a kuspuk worn without a parka. Fur and skin have a lot of “shape” as opposed to the “drape” of the fabric a kuspuk is made of. Depending on how detailed and realistic your art style is, the difference may not be important. For those familiar with Euro-American historical dress, it’s similar to the difference between any kind of post-medieval pre-1910s gown with foundational garments (boned bodices, corsets, farthingales, crinolines, bustles, hoop skirts, petticoats, etc) vs without. The way a kuspuk lays against the body is not the way a kuspuk lays on a parka worn on the body. The cuffs and the ruff will, of course, be outside of the kuspuk, which is why you need the room it takes to pull them through, but the parka may not be long enough for the hem to show and with a flouce, the bottom of the kuspuk will be much wider than the bottom of the parka.
• Much more than this has been done with the kuspuk. Modern takes can be as mundane as using a zipper in the front to as dramatic as being sideless or made entirely of lace. Try to find interview footage or news videos involving us for visual inspiration.
• If anyone has photos of kuspuks worn by their friends or family that they would like to share on this post, please feel free!

But how do I work this into the aesthetic of the Avatar: the Last Airbender universe?

• Depict or describe them being worn over a garment with a standing or mandarin collar
• Depict or describe them with embroidery or decorated with trim in such a way to mimic the overlapping look of hanfu, Qing Dynasty styles, hanbok, deel, or any other Asian traditional dress depicted in the franchise
• Dress them with pant styles, shoes and/or accessories traditional to any other culture that inspired the look of the series
• Alternatively, you can be as upset as I am by how little they bothered to actually include our cultures in any recognizable way and just draw Avatar characters in kuspuks out of spite. I certainly won’t mind and would appreciate the righteous fury on our behalf