Regional clothing and emancipation:
Has emancipation influenced regional wear and how does it differ in different provinces?
Regional clothing has always been something that occures more in traditional communities. These communities in general were not that touched immediatly by big cultural developments like the industrialisation and emanciapation. Before 1850 regional dress was dominating in Dutch towns and villages (Teunissen and Gibbs). The way of living of most people was isolated in small communities with self-sufficient economies. The high cultural and social cohesion was visible in the regional dress. People from different societal classes, religions and professions would dress differently. Someone's clothing could be an indicator for the specific town this person was from, as clothing details were different from town to town.
In the wealthy coastal provinces like Friesland, Zeeland and North Holland people were dressed more colorful and with a lot of jewelry. The rules that were followed in the regional dressing were passed on through generations and were never written down (Teunissen and Gibbs).
Part of our conclusion is focused more on the difference between men and women in regional wear, rather than specific influences that happened because of emancipation. It can be assumed that the changes that have happened in regional wear are most likely due to the different role that women now have in society, which can be derived from emancipation.
Because of industrialisation, most of these remote villages got more in contact with the outside world, specificially men since women at this time were not working a lot outside of their homes. This meant that these men would stop wearing regional wear a lot sooner than women.
The homebound position of women and their derived status provide an explanation for the fact that women in all social strata only exchange regional costume for city fashion clothing at a later stage than men. Women were also still very dependant on their status, like being married, in their communities, wealth etc. Often their regional wear showed these aspects of their lives and was the only way, in a good situation, to also give them the priviliges their status could give them. For that reason women maintained the dress for a lot longer.
In this project we researched the possible connection between emancipation in the Netherlands and traditional Dutch regional wear. We did this by seperatly researching emancipation and traditional wear in different provinces. To then come to a possible conclusion together.
In conclusion, we would argue that in the researched communities, regional wear was the norm and therefore restrained the emancipation of these women, as regional wear has been confirming the role women got appointed in society. It was hard to break free from these patterns and roles in these communities, as the regional wear had been a long lasting tradition in these smaller villages with a lot of social cohesion. Also, these smaller villages were not as susceptible for the global changes happening in bigger cities.
