Swedish Peasant Clothing
The artistic labours of the Swedish peasant woman, whose sense of beauty and technical ability we have had occasion to admire in the woven hangings and other textile productions for…
Location: Sweden
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From “Sweden.” in Peasant Art in Sweden, Lapland, and Iceland by Sten Granlund, 1910.
The artistic labours of the Swedish peasant woman, whose sense of beauty and technical ability we have had occasion to admire in the woven hangings and other textile productions for the decoration of the home, found a rich and fruitful field in the adornment of the popular native costumes, which display an astonishing wealth of colour and variety in design. It was not the various provinces alone whose dresses differed totally in design and adornment; the hundreds within each province, the parishes within each hundred, nay, the very villages in those parishes, not infrequently had each a pronounced type of dress, distinct in colours and design from that of the others.
460: Church Dress from Dalarne. Images from book, by Charles Holm.
It is not easy to say when the custom arose of wearing these local dresses, as they may be called. That they existed and had been observed at an early date is proved, amongst other things, by the remarkable proclamation issued to the clergy by Gustavus Adolphus the Great in 1630, to make a note of the dresses, customs, etc., of the people. In the dresses of a number of districts we find clear evidence that they gained their uniformity of character towards the close of the 15th, or the beginning of the 16th century.
461: Bridemaid’s Dress from Dalarne.
Like everything else, however, these national dresses have experienced the influence of development and frequent changes in style, but the results of this influence have been very varied in different parts of the country. Thus we find dresses which, when worn as they still were even in the 19th century, retained with wonderful tenacity their mediaeval character, while the dresses of other country districts showed a touch, here of renaissance and there of rococo, but still without entirely destroying the local character of the costumes. A remarkable thing is, that it is the women's dresses that have most faithfully retained their original type, whilst the dresses of the men have been more easily influenced by the changing fashions of the time.
These local dresses were long held in reverence, and the elders of the parish watched with jealous eye to prevent the intrusion of any foreign touch in the costumes. A number of minutes of meetings of parish authorities bear witness to the care with which this watch was kept. The youths of both sexes were strictly enjoined to keep to the dresses of their forefathers, and to beware of imitating the innovations prevalent amongst neighbouring parishes.
462: Summer Dress From Dalarne
In the parish of Vingȧker, in 1769, complaints were made of "that evil thing," that people began to use broader heels to their boots than belonged to the proper dress of the district; and it was enacted that those daring to go to church wearing heels broader than the customary ones were to be mulcted to the amount of sixpence. On another occasion the shoemakers and the tailors were solemnly admonished not to venture to make clothes of other fashion than those approved of by the pastor and the 24 elders of the parish. Should they dare to do otherwise, they lost all right of demanding payment, and were also to be severely admonished and reprimanded at the meeting of the vestry.
These peasant-dresses were worn pretty generally until the first few decades of the 19th century, when they began to disappear, and now they are scarcely worn anywhere except in Dalecarlia. In spite of all the efforts that are being made to re-introduce the use of these dresses, the time is probably not far distant when they will be found only in museums as relics of bygone days. Here they will form interesting material for the antiquarian who, in their cut, patterns and colours, will be able to study, not only an important link of the cultural development of the Swedish people, but also the differences of character of the people inhabiting the various provinces of the country.
463: Church Dress from Dalarne.
Space will not permit any very detailed account of that very interesting subject, Swedish peasant-dresses; they can be mentioned here only as far as they tend to illustrate the subject of peasant-art in our country (Nos. 405 to 453, and 460 to 477).
In former times, the daughter in a Swedish peasant's home was obliged to have made a certain number of hangings, and to have woven a certain amount of linen, before she was permitted to marry. It was by the number of these, and the labour expended in such artistic work to which they bore witness, that she was deemed to possess those qualities which serve to transform a domesticated and industrious girl into a capable housewife. Most assuredly we have to thank, this custom for a great deal of the woven and sewn handiwork which nowadays is so highly prized by collectors and lovers of art, and which is referred to with grateful reverence by those who now labour to bring about a revival of the ancient Swedish home-sloyd.
470: Girl’s Dress from Södermanland.
The richly coloured peasants' dresses, the women's as well as the men's, with their vast numbers of different articles of apparel, intended for various occasions, afforded plenty of opportunity, as has already been said, for decoration and embroidery. Knitting and lace-making, hem-stitch and flat embroidery here played prominent parts. Great luxury was often displayed in the matter of embroidered linen and lace, and the so-called "bridegroom's shirts" (No. 435) are really magnificent specimens of such work.
435: Bridegroom’s Shirt from Skӓne
471: Festival Dress from Vӓstergötland.
An almost incredible amount of labour has been expended on this article of dress. It was not enough to adorn both collar and cuffs with the richest embroidery, but the shirt-front too, of which, of course, the greater part was hidden beneath the waistcoat, was decorated with the most wonderful, most skilfully and tastefully executed artistic needlework.
The reason of this luxuriance in the embroidery of such articles was, most certainly, the custom which had come down from the middle ages, that the betrothed maiden should present her sweet-heart with a shirt as a wedding gift. As a proof of the great importance that was attached to this custom in some places, antiquarians relate that prudent mothers let their daughters get these bridegroom-shirts in order, long before the girls had reached a marriageable age, so that the present might be ready when it was needed.
472: Festival Dress from Helsingland.
It is chiefly in Scania and Dalecarlia that lace-making and linen-embroidery still follow the old traditionary technique and patterns, and where modern work can still be seen which is fully comparable with the best embroidery and lace-making of former times. In general, lace-making, which in Sweden is considered, with or without reason, to be a branch of the art-industry pursued by the Vadstena nuns, in its most flourishing period reached a very high standard, and could boast of a remarkably great wealth of patterns, copies sometimes of accepted artistic styles, and sometimes the artistic creations of the peasant women themselves.
They did not content themselves with merely borrowing old designs and reproducing such patterns from memory, but they often designed, or, as they themselves pregnantly said, "composed" (the word is used here in the same sense as when employed by a poet) new patterns, which afterwards became traditionary in their families, or in the district. A brilliant specimen of such "composed" lace is the Rattvik lace which was made within a very circumscribed tract in Dalecarlia, and which seems to have arisen quite spontaneously. In the domain of Swedish lace-making, at least, this pattern is altogether unique.
473: Church Dress from Dalarne.
In this connection may also be pointed out the plaited fringes, although in Scandinavia they did not belong to the decoration of the dress. The plaiting of which these fringes usually consisted was made of unravelled pieces of web, or of that part of the warp in a web by means of which the latter was fastened to the loom. There were often many such fringes or laces in a house (Nos. 454 to 457). They were used to form the ends of towels, to cover the principal rafter of the old ceiling-less cottages, the shelves, cupboards, etc. The work was done, either by the women-folk of the house or by old women who went from farm to farm, and gave their artistic services in return for food or a small sum of money.
Granlund, Sten. “Sweden.” Peasant Art in Sweden, Lapland, and Iceland. Edited by Charles Holm. Translated by E. Adams-Ray, The Studio Ltd, 1910.
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