Slow Fashion Culture

Map of costume locations in the Forchheim region.

Costume reloaded At folk festivals, you can find young women and men in dirndls and lederhosen once again today. The textile commitment to the Bavarian homeland is followed by the occupation with the Upper Franconian costume. One reflects on its own origins, the Upper Franconian forebears. Traditional costume tailors work with traditional clothing and create something new from the old. And costumes are once again being made for many occasions.

Clothing always tells a story. It tells who you are or want to be, where you come from or where you belong. And this is especially true for costumes. Costume wearers partake in a tradition which often stretches across generations and shows their identity.

Village costumes testified to the origin (village), status (unmarried or married) or wealth of the wearer. Urban fashion influences were certainly adopted, provided they pleased and proved practical. Women's historical festive costumes were particularly bold and bright. It consisted of many individual parts: several skirts on top of each other, shirt, body, "Schubben" (jacket), apron, several scarves around the neck and head.

The carefully and elaborately arranged pleats on the waistband emphasized the back view, while the fabric was smooth in the front, because the apron had to sit here.

The so-called breast patch acted as a bodice. Pleated silk ribbons bordered it at the neckline. The dividing seams were reinforced and richly embroidered. Ribbons or buttons closed the breast patches at the front of the chest. Skirts were pulled over the pads on the side and ensured a wider hip silhouette, in line with the beauty standards of the time.

The men also dressed in traditional costume, consisting of knee breeches, white stockings, shirt, vest, frock coat and wide tricorn hat. The rather dark male costume had a colorful bright spot; the elaborately decorated vest, usually in bright red, peeked out from under the openly worn frock coat.

…They wore them on feast days with the horned scarf or the banded hood, which actually came to Franconian Switzerland from the Nuremberg countryside.

In the early 20th century, there were significant changes in Franconian Switzerland's dress culture. The new costume was less elaborate, the many silk scarves were no longer included, the wide-cut jackets were replaced with high-collared "smocks" and the skirts were no longer pleated, but gathered in folds at the buttocks. On Sundays, women also wore an embroidered headscarf tied at the neck.

They also wore costumes when doing housework, work on the farm and in the field. The mostly blue-ground cotton fabrics met other criteria for this: they had to be washable, hard-wearing and robust.

After the Second World War, wearing traditional costumes was increasingly considered outdated. In many places, women, often under pressure from their families, discarded their traditional costumes. Since then, in some villages, people have been rediscovering the tradition and wear historical festive costume on festive days and in processions. The old tradition lives once again and also makes a delightful sight for visitors.