Folk Costumes during the Ritual Year and Changes in Life, in a Parish in Dalecarlia, Sweden : Continuity, Values, Revitalisation

• In the parish of Boda, like in many other parishes in the county of Dalecarlia, there used to be a kind of dressing that was thoroughly local and homogeneous. This dressing tradition was still alive until far into the 20th century. We hesitate to call the dressing folk costume as there were no other clothes besides these locally peculiar garments. Everyone followed the same rules of dressing as well as the variations throughout the year (dressing calendar) and in different stages of life. There were hundreds of rules for how to dress on Christmas Day, during Lent, on Easter Day, on a 'normal' Sunday in the summer and in the winter, on Prayer Days always with differences depending on one's life status: married or not, confirmed or not and of course on different occasions like weddings and Holy Communion, not to mention everyday and working clothes. It was not possible to break the rules, in which every garment had its own meaning and symbol. This very homogeneous dressing has its demographic, social, and economic explanations. The population was extremely homogeneous, every family being land-owners and nobody poorer or richer than anyone else. In the last decades there has been an increasing interest in old clothing traditions, from before the 20th century. The paper will discuss the nature of this growing interest on the basis of rich archival material and a collection of authentic garments from the 19th century.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Etnologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Ethnology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Boda

Dalecarlia

local culture

national garments

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)