From: Indiana German Heritage Society Newsletter, Fall 1996, Vol. 12, Issue 4

A "Tracht" is a traditional garment typical of a certain area. The word "Tracht" is related to the verb "tragen," "to wear." Before the leveling effect of urbanization, native dress was always bound to a given place, a specific social unit, and a local culture. This explains the great regional diversity. In his article "About Dialects and High German" (Spring 1996, Vol. 12, Issue 2) Eberhard Reichmann showed vastly different dialect and cultural areas from which German-speaking people came and still come. Each region not only has its own dialect, it also has its own set of customs and traditions, including dress.

Since Northwest Germany provided a large number of German immigrants to Indiana, their language, foods, dances and dress were brought here by these early settlers. Amish and Mennonite dress, still worn in Indiana to this day, reflect clothing styles of the Alsatian-Southwest German- Swiss areas, at the time of these groups' emigration. The Harmonist style of clothing, depicted in prints or paintings, resembles the style of a region east of the Black Forest.

As with the Amish, dressing in traditional garb is an outward expression of belonging to a specific group or place called "Heimat." It can be the place where one lives or was born; it can be a place which, for one reason or other, one had to leave or chose to leave. Such dress requires a commitment to a value system shared by a specific community and conformity to that system. More than any other, this is the reason, why folk-style clothing is a fashion or a costume and not a native dress.

The late Günter Moltmann showed that adaptation was necessary for immigrants as far as the physical layout of real estate was concerned; they had to adhere to the grid patterns of the American land acts of 1785 and 1796. They would adapt to the lay of the land, to the climate, and the resources available. But they would not give up their customary ways. "Most people migrating from one country to another do not shake off their old clothes in a hurry and put on new ones suited to their future environment--at least not immediately upon arrival... Along with the things necessary for their physical existence, the immigrants' baggage includes their cultural heritage, their mother tongue, their ways of life, their personal concepts, their value systems and preconceived plans for the future, their hopes and expectations." (Moltmann, p. xviii).

Until the 16th century, farmers and people of the lower classes usually wore gray or brown-colored garments. Wearing blue was allowed only on Sundays and holidays. Since the 16th century, traditional country dress began to develop as part of a system of order. Every trade had its distinctive work clothes and Sunday dress. Dresses, trousers, shirts, vests, and head pieces, worn for work differed from those worn for festive occasions and they differed from region to region. The Black Forest "Bollenhut," a black hat with red "Bollen," (balls) differed from the bonnet worn by the women in Münsterland. It was called "a cap," and differing styles were worn for work, on Sundays, holidays, and special occasions. Beside two everyday bonnets, there were mourning bonnets, worn by widows, and the most beautiful piece--the gold bonnet for the wedding and festive occasions.

"Tracht" is sewn and fitted by specialized tailors or seamstresses for the wearer. Folk-style clothes, on the other hand, are produced by the ready-to-wear fashion industry or made at home. Native dress uses only natural materials: wool, linen, silk, silver, mother-of-pearl, etc. Dirndl dresses use synthetic and plastic products. Native dress features handwork: embroidery, lace and hand woven materials. Dirndl dresses use machine embroidery and laces. Native dress distinguishes between work, visiting and festival dress; it indicates the marital status and the role of the wearer at a given function, and the family or clan the wearer belongs to. Dirndl dresses make no such distinction. Native dress uses ornamental trim very carefully, concentrating instead, on quality of workmanship. Dirndl dresses use showy ornamentation in profusion with quality of workmanship a secondary concern.

Native dress is always the same length; the hems of dirndl dresses go up and down with the current fashion. Native dress plays down the female torso; dirndl dresses deliberately accentuate the upper body. Native dress is generally limited in design to the traditional form for a given region; dirndl dress designs are limited only by the designer's taste and imagination. And, finally, dirndl fashions are proliferated by the ready-to-wear industry, while the authenticity of native dress has to be protected and nurtured in order to survive.

Like other clothing, "Tracht" was undergoing changes over the centuries and still does today, however at a much slower pace than regular fashion. The heyday of traditional dress was around the beginning of the 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century--the industrial revolution had created the garment industry--typical national/native dress had begun to disappear in many places. Instead peddlers hawked cheap, factory-made fabrics, which may not have looked as great, but were inexpensive.

Fashion influences altered the typical characteristics of native dress until they disappeared altogether. This was a gradual development, in some places and regions happening faster than in others. Where tradition remained important, especially in parts of Bavaria and Austria, the Black Forest, Lower Saxony, Friesland, Schleswig, the Harz Mountains, Hesse and Lusatia, people continued to wear their traditional dress for a long time. In only a few cases has a tradition continued unbroken up to now.

In the last decades of the 19th century, an upsurge of national consciousness all over Europe occurred. Young people, looking for an outward symbol of national and ethnic identity, turned to their native dress as a means of identifying with their region or country. Folk tradition movements began to advocate renewal of existing native dress and contributed to their revival in areas where they had disappeared. One of the oldest known groups is the "Trachtengilde Schwalenberg."

In order to halt the disappearance of traditional costumes in their region, a "Club to Preserve the Costumes of Leizachthal" was founded in 1883 in Bayrischzell. It is assumed that the idea of a "Volkstrachtenverein" devoted to the preservation of native dress, as we know them today, began in Bayrischzell and quickly spread. The sense of community, which began to disappear with ever increasing urbanization, was now regained in the community of a club.

Donning traditional dress is not the only mission for these organizations. Just as important are preserving old customs and the social aspects of coming together. Although exact numbers are not available, it is estimated that in Germany alone about 2,000 such clubs with approximately one and a half million members exist. This is not counting the many folk dancing groups, music groups, etc., dedicated to maintaining traditional customs and dress. As a result, thousands of different costumes have been preserved or rescued from oblivion.

In the Alpine areas popularity of folk-style clothes was further helped by the imperial house of Austria and the royal house of Bavaria who had made wearing native dress fashionable. The hunter's uniform-like green, gray or black suits were the "in" outfit to wear. After WWII, hunter-style clothing increased again. This time due to converting lots of left-over army uniforms into "J„gerkost�me" for both men and women. The sportswear manufacturers soon began to promote dirndl fashions. It became the "in" thing for a city dweller who was about to vacation in the country to dress "like the natives". The effect pseudo-Bavarians had on local residents is roughly equivalent to that of Germans visiting U.S. festivals with umpah bands, dirndl and lederhosen.

Having become a fashion, dirndl dresses became subject to the laws of fashion: styles began to change quickly. The current trend is toward "the more, the better". It is possible to find on one dress all of the following: lace, eyelet, embroidery, chains, buttons, ruffles and braids. A pattern book of "Folklore Fashions" once featured the following headline: NEU: DIRNDL IM JEANS-LOOK!!

Volkstrachtenvereine (native dress societies) dismiss dirndl fashions as Kitsch and in poor taste. And yet many German and Austrian women wear them. There are several reasons for this. Unless involved in costume and folk dance matters, one often is not aware of the difference between native dress and dirndl fashions. Secondly, folk-style fashions are readily available and native dress is not. Thirdly, even those who do know the difference, still wear dirndl dresses simply because, while they are expensive (up to app. $500), they are less costly than a native dress (up to $3,000). However, one can pay just as much for coats and capes, and fancy folk-style clothes for festive occasions, at Loden-Frey in Munich.

The boundaries between traditional dress and fashionable dress have always been fuzzy. Even experts cannot agree. For many wearers traditional garb, native or fashion, remains alive, is worn and enjoyed. It is not something to be admired only in museum cases.

What does this mean for us? Most of us wear fashion dirndl, bought or made. If, as a club, we want to adopt our own "ethnic garb," that seems okay. If someone finds an old native dress in grandmother's chest, this is wonderful. It can be worn or, if very fragile, should be given to a German-American museum. If a dance group wants to go historic with their dances, a few stylized costumes, incorporating major features of area and period, are great. Our possibilities are endless. Most of all it is important to wear and enjoy!

Ruth M. Reichmann
Max Kade German-American Center
Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis

Sources: Moltmann, Keynote Address "When People Migrate, They Carry Their Selves Along," Emigration and Settlement Patterns of German Communities in North America, (Indianapolis, 1995), pp. xvii-xxxii

Karen Gottier,"To Dirndl or not to Dirndl?", in The German Folk Dancer, Published by the North American Federation of German Folk Dance Groups, May 1995, Vol. 1, No. 3.

"Traditional Costumes", in FOCUS, No. 3, 1995, p. 11

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