As in many of the european countries, the Finnish national costumes are based on the outfits of common people in the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. These outfits used to represent the estate of the wearer, so even there were dressing laws which forbade dressing too sophisticated for the ones who weren't in upper class. Common people therefore had to come up with ways to dress well without breaking the laws. These laws influenced a lot the dressing of common people and the way the Finnish national costumes look today. As the dialects of Finnish language, also the Finnish folk costumes are divided in two groups, namely western, and Karelian, or eastern.
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