The clothes of traditional type had various forms and variants. Except for utilitarian purpose of protecting the body against influences of the external environment it possessed symbolical and ritual functions.
    
    The Chăvash used canvas, homespun cloth, manufactured fabrics, felt, leather as materials for clothes. For footwear there was also bast, a type of tree. The material for clothes was produced at home. From hemp and flax they made canvas. Celebratory clothes were sewed from thin canvas (Şinşe pir), and from a canvas of medium quality (Vătam pir) - working shirts, wide trousers. Thin cloth from sheep wool (Tăla) went on celebratory and wedding caftans (Săhman), rough - on usual caftans and chapans.
    
    In XIX century Anatri Chuvashs started using one-color and multi-color fabrics (Ulacha -type of canvas weaved from colorful threads with cell or stripes patterns). Virjal and Mid-Anatri Chuvashs clothes (shirts and trousers) were still as well as in the remote past of Chuvash ancestors, from white canvas. In the end XIX - beginning XX centuries for working shirts and shupărs (coats) Virjal Chuvashs used a home-made fabric of white color made of manufactered cotton threads (Katanpir, Pűs). Manufactured fabrics were bought for furnish of traditional clothes.