Full Answer
What is the traditional dress of Sweden?
In Sweden, women traditionally wore skirts, aprons, stockings, hats and shoes, while men and boys wore trousers, shirts, long socks and shoes. Swedes refer to traditional styles of dress as folk dress and national costumes. Different styles of dress appeared for men and women, and distinguished social classes from one another.
Do other countries use the national dress like Sweden?
You sometimes see the Swedish royal family wearing the national dress, but except for the dancing events, that's about it. In Norway and Finland I guess they use them more often, but I've heard that, at least in Finland, the use of the national dress is declining, just like in Sweden.
Why is Sweden's national dress blue and yellow?
I would love to see an up close photo of that dress! The reason we have a blue and yellow national dress (created somewhere around the 1900's) was because the cities and some other areas of Sweden did not have their own regional dress. So for every Swede to be able to dress up in a folkdräkt, the national dress was created.
What are the characteristics of Swedish folk costumes?
This flower is symbolic for Sweden. In general, Swedish folk costumes were made from wool in the past. This fabric is warm and durable, perfect for the local cold climate. As wool is rather complicated in dyeing, most of the costumes were dark because it’s hard to dye the fabric in bright colors evenly.
What do women wear in Sweden?
Why did the Swedish government make the national costume?
What are the colors of the Swedish flag?
About this website
Who wrote me about Swedish national dress?
Last week a Swedish woman named Annika wrote me with information about Swedish national dress. So, I am going to share this with all of you. Her words will be in blue.
Who designed the blue and yellow Swedish dress?
I have just read that the Swedish national dress the blue and yellow one was designed by Marta Jorgensen in about 1905. But I had always heard that because Queen Silvia was of German ancestry a costume was designed for her to wear as well and that was the reason that it was designed.
Why are regional dresses so expensive?
The reason the "real" regional or national dresses are expensive is because they're entirely made by hand! The cloth for my mother's dress was woven by hand by a friend of my grandmother, and the rest of the dress was embroidered and sewn together by hand by my mother and grandmother. It took months to make a finished dress! That is why all the old and proper (=hand sewn) dresses are made to be easily taken in or let out - they are supposed to last a lifetime, and then handed down to relatives.
Is Sweden wearing national dress?
It used to be more common in Sweden to wear a national or regional dress a few decades ago, in previous generations. Then you could see people wearing them to official functions, weddings, or fancy parties, but now it has gone out of fashion.
How many different costumes are there in Sweden?
840 different costumes. Swedish folk costumes are so diverse – there are 840 different variations (550 female folk outfits and 290 male ones). Some of them have a rather long history, dating back from the 17th-19th century, others are more modern – from the early to mid 20th century. Swedish female folk attire, 1900-1905.
What color was Swedish women's national attire in 1919?
Swedish women’s national attire in blue & yellow color palette and with daisy pattern, 1919-1929. From The American Swedish Institute
What is a Swedish headdress?
Swedish female headdress is the accessory that catches the eye the most. There is a wide variety of headpieces for different occasions and regions. From bonnets to kerchiefs to wimples to crowns to headpieces of a really odd shape. It’s always fun to look through the local folk headdresses, compare them, and try to guess their origin and purpose.
Why are Swedish folk costumes dark?
This fabric is warm and durable, perfect for the local cold climate. As wool is rather complicated in dyeing, most of the costumes were dark because it’s hard to dye the fabric in bright colors evenly.
Is Sweden a Scandinavian country?
Geographically, Sweden is one of the Scandinavian countries, so its national costumes have a lot of features in common with neighboring Norway, Denmark, etc.
Did Sweden lose their costumes?
By the way, a similar situation we find in many other European countries, including Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and others. That war influenced the life of many countries severely. Only in the 1970s, Swedish people started to make and wear authentic costumes again and recover the knowledge about them. Luckily, they haven’t lost their heritage clothing.
What do Swedish people wear today?
When it comes to traditional clothing today it's mostly jeans and T-shirts / shirts with varied designs. Otherwise Swedish people follow the modern clothing trends pretty well.
What was the last Swedish region that used traditional clothes?
The last Swedish region that I know of that used “traditional clothes” daily was Runö (“Ruhnu” in Estonian). (Picture from 1937). This was an very old Swedish settlement, but the island is lying isolated in the bay of Riga. Their economy was also based on “primitive communism”, that is, collective work, ownership and management. That meant that they had a very rich code for dresses: different for different parts of the year and different phases in a persons life. But this code was also extremely conservative: the male dress used when hunting seals had not changed since the “Viking” Age. (Picture from 1930.) In 1944 the entire population on Runö fled to Sweden and a thousand years of Swedish settlement became history, including their dress code.
Why don't the Swedes wear dresses?
But unlike the Amish, Mennonites and Chassidus, the Swedes do not wear theses dresses anymore in their daily lives. Why? Because they are not any longer functioning as an important collective symbol, religious or national, nor do they fit in well with the works that exist in todays Swedish labour market.
What are the costumes of the Swedes?
seriously, the Swedes have gorgeous folk costumes of bright wool. Long multi colored striped skirts for the women and knickerbocker solid colored pants for the men. Check google for images. Expensive to buy them but we here in the folk world of the San Francisco Bay Area sometimes try to make them using a lighter material like cotton due to our climate.
What is folkdräkter in Sweden?
I’ll focus on the history of the folkdräkter in Sweden are basically the fancy dress worn by ‘the common people’ in various parts of the country. During the national romantic era during the 19th century these were formalized for the different regions. Hence, traditional clothing varies a lot between different regions.
What are the clues in Swedish folk costumes?
In general terms, the archaic Swedish folk costumes give the same clues as folk costumes in other European countries - also Russia and a number of other nations - in terms of marital status, social status, financial status and the district the person in question hails from.
What is the traditional dress called?
The “traditional clothes” are often called “häradsdräkt”: dress of the “härad”. “Härad” was an old judicial division, like the sheriffdoms in Scotland. They do not exist anymore. For some reason strong social ties developed within the “härad”, including separate dress codes.
National Day of Sweden
Why : Swedes celebrate it in memory of the election of the nations founding father, Gustav Vasa, on June 6th, 1523.
Midsommar, midsummer
Why: Celebration of fertility, summer solstice/the beginning of Summer
Kräftskiva, crayfish party
Why: Originally, Swedes celebrated the end of the traditional annual ban on fishing for crustaceans between 1st of November and the first Wednesday in August. Since 1994 there is no ban anymore. No reason for Swedes to stop celebrating.
Christmas in Sweden
When: Christmas eve (exchange of Christmas gifts ): December 24; December 25 and 26, first and second Christmas day.
What do women wear in Sweden?
In Sweden, women traditionally wore skirts, aprons, stockings, hats and shoes, while men and boys wore trousers, shirts, long socks and shoes. Swedes refer to traditional styles of dress as folk dress and national costumes.
Why did the Swedish government make the national costume?
In the early 1900s, Queen Silvia and Marta Palme introduced the Swedish national costume, which varied in design and color for the different socioeconomic classes, to give Swedes a sense of national pride and unity as citizens.
What are the colors of the Swedish flag?
Men and women's traditional folk dress come in the two primary colors of blue and yellow, the colors of the Swedish flag. Swedes made their own garments at home. Although instructed to follow national standards, clothing varied among regions within Sweden.
