Gakti or gákti, as it is written in Northern Sámi

Northern Sami

Northern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland...

, is a piece of traditional clothing

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

 worn by the Sámi

Sami people

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

 in northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The gákti is worn both in ceremonial

Ceremony

A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...

 contexts and while working, particularly when herding reindeer

Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...

. The traditional Sami costume is characterized by a dominant color adorned with contrast colored bands, plait

Plait

A plait may refer to:* Plait, also called a braid, intertwined strands of, for example, textile or hair* Plait, now called a pleat, a fold of fabric, used in clothing and upholstery* Plait , a fold in the columella of a gastropod mollusc...

s, pewter

Pewter

Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 85–99% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and lead. Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the lower grades of pewter, which have a bluish tint. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C ,...

 embroidery, tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

 art, and often a high collar

Collar (clothing)

In clothing, a collar is the part of a shirt, dress, coat or blouse that fastens around or frames the neck. Among clothing construction professionals, a collar is differentiated from other necklines such as revers and lapels, by being made from a separate piece of fabric, rather than a folded or...

. In the Norwegian language it is called 'kofte', most probably due to the word "gákti" being somewhat similar to the word 'kofte' in the accusative, genitive, locative and comitative case (gávtti/gaftti, gávtti/gaftti, gávttis/gafttis, gávtiin/gafttijn).

Basics

The colours, patterns and the jewellery of the clothing can tell if a person is single or married and where the person is from. There are different gákti for women and men; men's gákti have a shorter "skirt" than women's. Traditionally the gákti was made from reindeer leather, but nowadays it's more common to use wool, cotton or silk. The gákti can be used with a belt (pleated, quilted or with silver buttons), silver jewellery, traditional leather footwear and a silk scarf.
It is also a tradition that if your buttons on the belt are square, it shows that you are married. If they are round, you are single/not married yet. If a married couple divorce, and the ex-husband continue to use the Sami costume made by his ex-wife, he signals that he still wants her.

Fake gákti

The Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 tourist industry is notorious for displaying fake "sami culture" for tourists. Ethnically Finnish actors dress up in fake "gáktis" and perform fake "traditional rituals". This activity has been met with fierce protests from ethnic Sámi since it creates a false image of Sámi culture, diverts tourist industry money from ethnic Sámi to ethnic Finns (thereby exploiting the Sámi presence in Lappland without giving anything back to the Sámi) and is dishonest towards tourists.