Swiss Ladies keep 18th Century Fashion alive

[joyful_molly]

Today I’m writing about something I don’t actually know much about: national dresses. Or rather, cantonal dresses, as we’ll be talking about Switzerland. Each canton - even each district! - has its own historical dress.

What has this to do with 18th century fashion, though? A lot! Many of these dresses have their origins in the 18th century,

Comments

[eglantine_br]

Where I live, in Brooklyn there are many Hasidic Jews. The women wear more or less modern dresses, with long sleeves and often head scarves. But some of the men wear clothing that is very old fashioned. They almost always wear long black coats. On holidays they wear silk knee breeches, and large fur hats.

[joyful_molly]

Yes, we see some of those clothes here as well (I grew up next to the orthodox temple, so it was a familiar sight), though more today than when I was a child.

large fur hats

Oh yes! The father of a schoolfriend wore one, we call them streiml hats here. Ah, childhood memories... :)

I wouldn't call it a national dress, though; maybe faith-related? Just like modest clothing for some Christians? National dresses here are not influenced by religion (I think).

[eglantine_br]

No, not really National dress, of course. But kind of old fashioned. Cool and interesting.

When we first moved here my daughter was stiill little. She called those hats 'cake hats.' She thought they looked like big layer cakes!

[helens_daughter]

In California it's only among the Mexicans and Native Americans, I'm afraid.

[joyful_molly]

Red bathing suits might count? :)

[aletheiafelinea]

I love the headdress! The colours scheme is great too, especially on the last photo. :)

Hmm, if you ask... It's quite a diversity where I come from. Almost every village has own dress. I think these ones are the closest to my birthplace: 1, 2. The ethnic group's name is Lachy Sądeckie. The costume took this shape mostly in XIX and in the first half of XX century, especially man's coat; as you can see woman's corset looks quite XVIII-age too. ;) They diverse mostly in details of the embroidery. Today they are used mostly in folk music bands, almost every local municipality has one. This is how they look in action: 1, 2, 3.

However, the costume of highlanders from Tatras is more widely known. Here they present 'zbójnicki', meaning 'robbers' dance'. Traditionally, a bonfire is supposed to be on the stump's place. Women's dress is similar to Lachy's, only with flower-patterned skirts, and shoes are very alike men's. This is how they look like.

[joyful_molly]

Thanks for posting these! Yes, I've seen the latter dresses before. Awesome clothing (so beautifully colourful!) and dancing (much more lively than our own folk dances).

The embroideries are amazing. Imagine how long it must have taken to finish only one piece of garment. :O That 18th century influence seems to be found in many national dresses; I wonder if that's when it all started. Age of fashion enlightment! :)

[aletheiafelinea]

Later I recalled this and that I had omitted and can be interesting too. :)

These are costumes from the region I described here. The middle part of the clip (5:00 - 7:00) is special fun. *g*

The guys dancing zbójnicki under the previous link neglected one important element. 3:05 and 3:25 *g*

Here one Englishman writes about folk costumes in a Corpus Christi procession he witnessed and photographed in Łowicz last year.

As for 'still used' aspect, there's one element that's common in many Polish folk costumes, that is a colorful (most often flowery) shawl. Older women in countryside still use it as headscarf, like this. However, recently they are coming back to fashion (CLICK) in cities and among young women: CLICK

The traditional female handicraft in Koniaków on Silesia is knitting of laces, such ones. Some time ago, the artists decided it's high time for some business thinking, and now one can have not only lace tableclothes, but also thongs, bras, tops, and even whole dresses. If you ask how it wears, no idea. Haven't tried. *g

[joyful_molly]

This looks absolutely awesome! And omg, how cute is that wee girl! *squees*

Ahem. *cough*

there's explanation that folk costumes formed when the XIX century brought manufactured - that is cheaper and relatively unified - fabrics, sequins and such. Still, I'm sure it doesn't explain national patterns, like Scottish tartan(s).

Ohhh... now that's an excellent point! Looks like I have something else to add to my endless list of "things to research". About tartan - I don't think its originas are in Scotland; I think it was more a "common pattern" thousands of years ago in some parts of Europe. Maybe it has something to do with the method/tools of weaving used?

[jaiden_s]

Those are lovely.

There isn't a regional dress here, though a lot of people like to wear the Old South hoop skirted dresses when they are doing reinactments.

[classics_lover]

Off-topic, but can I guess from your icon there's a bit of Irish in you?

Just curious.

[jaiden_s]

Irish from my mom's side, Scottish and Danish from my Dad's. My sirname is Scott. :)

[joyful_molly]

The USA are SO big, it makes sense there's not one dress to represent all of the nation. Though that Scarlett O'Hara outfit is probably one many people would think of first.

[sturmbringer]

My family comes from Burgenland, which is in the southeast part of Austria. There are regional fashions, although they vary a lot. Contrary to the western, alpine parts of the country however, there is no such thing as the "Krachlederne", the short leather pants the men wear and which are probably associated with Austrian regional fashion the most. Here, men wore long, mostly dark pants with boots instead and generally, the colors were darker and not as vibrant. Heavily influenced by hungarian and even more so, croatian sources (a lot of croatian folk in southern Burgenland

[joyful_molly]

Here in Vienna now, it is not very popular to wear regional fashion, I think it has the slight taste of Nationalism because political figures who lean towards the right tend to wear it. So it has become an uncommon sight here and people with a "Dirndl" or a "Trachtenjanker" get looked at in an odd way.

Heh, funny that you're saying that, because it was one of the things we really noticed when we went to Vienna - the great number of Dirndls and Trachtenjanker on the street! :-D But maybe we only noticed because you don't see anyhting like this here at all, at least not in the city.

I'm not a huge fan of the modernised dirndls - the Bratwurstpromis wearing them doesn't help. Minidirndl and plexi platforms - uaaaah! *shudder*