The traditional costume of Noord (North) Brabant, a province in the Netherlands.
The country of Holland has a wide variety of traditional costumes from the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The bright colors, intricate embroidery, and elegant lace caps were representative of the various provinces, and even of specific villages.
Maria Colyn, the heroine in my next book is from Noord Brabant. She lives on a farm there with her parents and three siblings. For this blog post, we will explore the details and the meaning found in the clothing that Maria and the women in her family wore.
As a quick note, the names introduced belong to actual people. As I researched, I discovered a group of family members who immigrated together to the Midwest. The men were listed by first and last names, while the women were listed only with a first initial preceding the last name. I gave them plausible Dutch names to help me develop their characters.
I’ll start with Maria’s mother, Lana Colyn, and her aunt, Corrie de Moor. Both of these women were married, so that contributed to the distinction of their appearance. On workdays, Lana and Corrie would have worn a dark dress in the color of black or blue with a plain apron in a muted tone. The fabric would have been durable so that the clothing was made to last for a long time. For work around the farm, they would have worn wooden shoes.
The symbol of their married status came out in their headwear. Lana and Corrie would have worn a white cap that was structured and fitted close to their heads. For Sunday wear, married women would have on a dark dress once again, but paired with an apron of high quality material in a simple, conservative pattern.
Over top of the white cap they would wear a Sunday bonnet, or a poffer, depending on the area of the province where they lived. The Sunday bonnet was fitted to the head and had white lace and ribbon trailing from the back. The poffer was more elaborate, all in white, with fringe on the edges, and pink or light green artificial flowers and leaves sewn on it. Broad silk ribbons hung down the back, and in some villages, tulle was worn over it.
Lana and Corrie would have worn basic gold brooches with their Sunday dresses, and they would have traded their wooden shoes for black leather ones. On cooler days, married women would wear a shawl in dark colors like black, blue, or brown.
Maria, as an unmarried woman, would look very similar to her mother and aunt on the workday in a dark colored dress. Her apron would also be of a plain fabric, and she would wear wooden shoes on the farm. Her white cap would indicate she wasn’t married because it would be simpler and have less starch than her mother’s.
On Sunday, Maria would wear a dark dress that was styled less rigidly than that of her aunt’s or mother’s. Her apron would be plain, and she would wear leather shoes. Since she wasn’t married, she would wear a white lace cap that was looser fitting and simpler than those of the married women. If she wore a shawl, it would be made of lightly colored woven patterns.
The overall traditional dress of Noord Brabant was restrained, modest, and practical. Women who were dressed in this conservative way would have been respected as members of an established household. They would have been understood as taking care of their appearance and of exercising discipline over their behavior.
The women in Maria’s family were intentional in their style and gave the impression of having everything in order. They practiced elegance through understatement rather than the display of bright colors and many pieces of jewelry.
When Maria and her family came to America, they retained their conservative style of dress and continued to wear the white caps. The work dress and plain apron would have been standard dress on the prairie as they helped to establish their farms, and would have blended in with the dresses and aprons of the pioneer women who were already living here.
Words and vocabulary interest me, so if they do you as well, then here is a vocabulary list to talk about traditional Dutch style in Noord Brabant:
Dress = jurk or kleding
Shawl = doek
Headwear = muts
Apron = schorten
Wooden shoes = klompen
Sources used in this article include “Dutch Costumes, a Look into the Past,” by Jacki Craver and Phyllis Zylstra, photography by Desha Bruxvoort, published by Custom Costumes, Pella, Iowa, 2007. The two photographs in this blog post came from this book.
National Costumes in Holland, Compiled with the assistance of the Netherlands National Open-air Folklore Museum, by Riet Hijlkema, Published by J.M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1952.
