Good Evening! Today I am posting an article that is being reprinted with permission. The article was written by Dr. Ingrid Loschek and I found it while searching for information about dirndls. I hope you enjoy it, I know I did.
Tracht
Alpine Clothing Goes Couture
How traditional costume conquered the world of fashion
For visitors to Munich's famous Oktoberfest, "tracht" – traditional costume – means a dirndl for women and Lederhosen for men. But for the true adherents of traditional dress – who join societies dedicated to preserving it – real tracht means the costumes they wear in style at regional festivals or at the rousing procession of traditional dress that marks the start of the Oktoberfest. Outside Bavaria, however, wearing traditional costume is more likely to signal a desire to cling to outdated customs.
Historically, today's regional traditional costumes are nineteenth-century inventions which were de rigueur for ceremonial occasions. These traditional costumes were purposely intended to signal one's distance from the fashions sported by the urban bourgeoisie and were seen as an expression of wholesome rusticality.
In a dirndl on the Alm From the mid 19th century onwards, traditional costume began to influence the style of clothing worn for hiking and became especially fashionable as the clothing of choice for excursions to the Alps. Even the nobility could be spotted wearing Lederhosen and boiled-wool jackets as they hunted amid the mountain peaks, while the ladies wandered the Alpine meadows in simple dirndls. What had started life as the practical clothing worn by farming folk (originally, the dirndl was a kind of petticoat and was worn for work by maids – the "dierne" – in domestic service) thus became a hit with city-dwellers, who would kit themselves out from head to toe in the "Bavarian" or "Tyrolean" style, often at Johann Georg Frey's "Specialist Store for Tourist Apparel" in Munich.
Yodellers hit New York In 1930, this traditional Alpine apparel conquered international fashion. It all started with Erik Charell's musical comedy Im Weissen Rössl. Set to music by Ralph Benatzky and performed on an Alpine-style set designed by Ernst Stern, this famous musical was first performed in Berlin on 8 November 1930. Yodellers, strapping young male folk-dancers and the arrival of Emperor Franz Joseph at idyllic St. Wolfgang in Austria's lake district were the highlights of the show. The colourful dirndls, Lederhosen, rustic green jackets, and even the traditional fedora-style hats with their characteristic tufts of chamois were an instant hit worldwide. In 1931, an English version – The White Horse Inn – ran in London, and in 1935, the show was turned into a silent movie before moving to Broadway in 1936. The boundless enthusiasm for Bavarian and Austrian traditional costume inspired tailors in London and even the creators of Parisian haute couture to design suits with green lapels, cuffs and antler buttons, sprigged summer dresses and hats "à la tyrolien" adorned with trailing pheasant feathers. And just in case a little support was needed to achieve the required "décolleté", there was always the dirndl bra – a Bavarian invention which preceded the push-up by a good many years.
Dirndl and Lederhosen – and no end to it In Germany, traditional costume and fashion had – and sometimes still have – very negative connotations for some people, because like many other traditions and customs, tracht was appropriated ideologically by the Nazis.
Nonetheless, in the general poverty which followed the Second World War, the almost indestructible Lederhosen and simple dirndl – which could be sewed at home from old curtains or tablecloths – became essential wearing in Austria and Bavaria.
And the international fashions that tracht inspired remained popular too. "Bavarian Style" woollen jackets were even designed in London, and it is said that the Chanel suit, which first appeared on the Paris catwalks in 1954, was inspired by the Alpine jacket.
At the end of the 1950s, dirndls for formal and evening wear and men's dress suits in tracht style became very popular following the release of films such as Die Trapp Familie (1956) with Ruth Leuwerik and Hans Holt. But it was The Sound of Music in 1965 (also about Salzburg's von Trapp family), starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, which made the mini-dirndl fashionable.
Even today, elements of Alpine traditional costume often feature in the collections of international designers.
Dr. Ingrid Loschek is Professor of Fashion History and Fashion Theory at Pforzheim University of Design and the author of several specialist books on fashion http://www.loschek.de/
Translation: Hillary Crowe Copyright: Goethe-Institut, Online-Redaktion
Any questions about this article? Please write! online-redaktion@goethe.de September 2005
Related links
Oktoberfest
Information on markets specialising in traditional costume
Bavarian Association of Traditional Costume
Association for the Preservation of Bavarian Culture and Heritage
© 2006 Goethe-Institut
