The Sarakatsani drove their flocks between Balkan summer pasture and winter lowland, and made their clothing from the animals they walked with. Everything reduces to two colours: fulled black wool for the cloak and the woman's fustani, undyed bone-white fleece for the chemise beneath it.

The ornament is counted cross-stitch on a thread grid — triangles, lozenges, chevrons, the running meander — packed into horizontal bands of fixed height with plain black between them. Scholars have put it next to Greek Geometric vase painting and found the same grammar. This system keeps that discipline: banded, stepped, matte, and short on colour.