Peasant costume

“ But a fair number of peasants in the streets, and peasant women in rather ordinary costume: tight-bodiced, volume-skirted dresses of hand-woven linen or thickish cotton. The prettiest is of dark-blue-and-red, stripes-and-lines, intermingled, so made that the dark-blue gathers round the waist into one colour, the myriad pleats hiding all the rosy red. ”

“ These peasant costumes, often of astonishing richness and beauty, vary more or less in every village, each community having its own traditional type; and, since this type does not vary, they can be handed down as valuable heirlooms from father to son and from mother to daughter. ”

“ And I see my first peasant in costume. He is an elderly, upright, handsome man, beautiful in the black-and-white costume. He wears the full-sleeved white shirt and the close black bodice of thick, native frieze, cut low. From this sticks out a short kilt or frill, of the same black frieze, a band of which goes between the legs, between the full loose drawers of coarse linen. The drawers are banded below the knee into tight black frieze gaiters. On his head he has the long black stocking cap, hanging down behind. How handsome he is, and so beautifully male! ”

“ Odd, but by no means unbecoming, is the costume of the Normandy peasant. The skirt is of striped woollen material, partially concealed beneath a red and blue apron. Of black, white, red, or maroon worsted, the bodice boasts long sleeves, some of which are scarlet in colour from wrist to elbow and dull claret to the shoulder, a small fringed shawl hiding the upper portion of the arm. Quite the most striking and important feature is the bourgoin. ”

“ As if to add a studied and exact truthfulness to the peasant costume worn by the old man, it was threadbare at the elbows and knees, and appeared to have been in use a long time, and his cloak, made of coarse material, resembled that of a fisherman. This old man had on the round hat of the day, with high crown and broad brim, which when turned down gives it a rustic appearance, and when caught up with a cord and cockade has a military air. He wore this hat after the peasant fashion with the rim flattened out, without cord or cockade. ”

“ See, again, how beautiful in color this peasant's costume is. The gown of a rich red, not glaring, but yet positive and pure; the apron, blue; she is a brunette, and so has wisely chosen to have that enviable little shawl or kerchief, the ends of which reach but just below her waist, of yellow; while that high head-dress, quaint and graceful, that serves her for a bonnet, and in fact is one, is of tender green.
Miss Larches. She is not troubled with trimming. ”

“ But when she walks, the full-petticoated peasant woman, then the [Pg 121] red goes flash-flash-flash, like a bird showing its colours. Pretty that looks in the sombre street. She has a plain, light bodice with a peak: sometimes a little vest, and great full white sleeves, and usually a handkerchief or shawl loose knotted. It is charming the way they walk, with quick, short steps. When all is said and done, the most attractive costume for women in my eye, is the tight little bodice and the many-pleated skirt, full and vibrating with movement. ”

“ Thinking seriously over the dress of the peasant in the North, South, East, and West, I am tempted to protest that progression has meant retrogression, and that the modern country-woman, with her indiscreet lace-trimmed blouse revealing the ragged belt of her mud-coloured petticoat, makes a sorry figure in comparison with her sister-toiler of the past ”

“ The peasant women were converted towards some ambition for the beautiful, and their costume became impressed with the ornamental, consisting of a bodice cut low in the neck to show a pleated chemisette of white linen, and attached to a fully gathered skirt, fastening with buttons down the front. Their boots were high and had buttons on the fronts, while the white linen apron and white linen cap or kerchief still held their place. ”

“ Peasant women wear spangled petticoats of blue or pink silk, a long-waisted costume of purple velvet embroidered in gold, high-heeled shoes which display silver buckles, and a kerchief draped on the plaited hair.
The men resemble the typical stage brigand, in a double-breasted waistcoat of blue or maroon velvet edged with gold lace, a row of gold or silver buttons running from either shoulder to meet at the waist, which is encircled by a brilliantly coloured sash. ”

“ A male peasant belonging to the same locality dons a short open coat of light-blue velvet, long-sleeved and boasting diminutive revers and silver buttons. The white cotton shirt introduces a turned-down collar and a gaily-coloured cravat, tied in a sailor's knot and drawn through a silver ring, and the waistcoat consists of striped red and white calico, while a scarlet sash supports tight knickerbockers of blue velvet. ”

“ Peasant Types and Children.—The peasant life of the country, the costume, now fast disappearing, and the old-world character, still happily preserved in many districts, were reproduced in the overglaze figures of an earlier period. This love of veracity in costume and environment is a feature which is traditional in the factory; it therefore comes as no surprise to find that peasant types are produced with underglaze treatment in colours. ”

“ In fact, the entire costume is very similar to that of many of the Swiss cantons. The male peasant dons a simple goat-skin, very wide knickerbockers, linen leggings, sandals, and red cap or hat with a broad brim. ”

“ The nobles followed the King; the merchants followed the nobles after their kind; the peasants were still clothed in the simplest of garments, having retained the Norman tunic with the sleeves pushed back over the wrist, kept the loose boots and straw gaiters, and showed the improvement in their class by the innovation of gloves made as a thumb with a pouch for the fingers, and pouches for money of cloth and leather hung on a leather belt. This proved the peasant to be a man of some substance by need of his wallet. Everyone wore the chaperon—a cap and cape combined. ”

“ While searching in the annals of the bygone costume of the peasant, the most democratic person might be tempted to regret the repeating of all sumptuary law. We are grateful to-day to recognise the artistic value of the red tie of the masculine tiller of the field, or of the coloured handkerchief over the head of the harvest-w^oman, but, in those other times, the plains and the fields, the woods and the forests, were the background for a people in brave array, on which blue, red, green, and white played conspicuous part. ”

“ In Russia the convention of dress may not serve as an index to the mind of the country, for the peasant is allowed to share with the prince a fancy for gold, coloured embroidery, and silk and jewels, and it has not yet become necessary for the Duma to include an advocate in the cause of costume. ”

“ The Oriental peasant's costume is picturesque or otherwise, according to the fancy of the observer. The red fez or turban, the upper garment, and the ample red sash wound round and round the waist until it is eighteen inches broad, look picturesque enough for anybody; but when it comes to having the seat of the pantaloons dangling about the calves of the legs, a person imbued with Western ideas naturally thinks that if the line between picturesqueness and a two-bushel gunny-sack is to be drawn anywhere it should most assuredly be drawn here. ”

“ Glancing roughly through the periods, I find that the dress most worn in England by the peasant women in the eleventh century consisted of a coarse woollen gown with long sleeves closely fitting to the wrists, a white linen apron, and a linen kerchief covering the head as a wimple. In the reign of Henry I. it is recorded that men wore simple tunics of red lined with white, innocent of a girdle, and open from the waist at the left side, the sleeves possessing long cuffs reaching almost to the elbow. ”

“ The most amusing thing about it is that the upper part of the costume remains feminine—the ordinary rough bodice of the peasant woman, often in bright colours of red or blue, worn with the most nondescript cut of trousers, of the “home-made” variety. That such a costume is necessary for women who take upon themselves the work of their men-folk in such a region of the world is quite apparent to any woman who attempts to follow them at their work for even ten minutes. ”

“ A pretty fellow, I'm convinced.
In this reign, too, ornamental braid found its place on the costumes of the peasant women, whose bodices, cut square and edged with braid, were laced up at the back. However, novelty, which is ever desirable, was obtained by limiting the bodices, raising the waists, and tightening the full sleeves at the wrists, where they were finished with a small frill. ”

“ This is simply owing to the fact that the fashions have become obsolete in the neighbouring places, for every local costume faithfully and rigorously preserved by any community at a distance from the centre of political action or government, must have been originally brought there by the nobles of the country. Thus the head-dress of Anne of Brittany is still that of the peasant-women of Penhoét and of Labrevack, and the hennin of Isabel of Bavaria is still the head-dress of Normandy. ”

“ The fez is often embroidered with seed pearls, which descend from generation to generation and are often worth twenty to thirty pounds. Then, lastly, there is the apron, which is part of the national costume, and is of wool, hand-embroidered in gay colours, many of them being of quaint and original design.
In the towns both men and women now adopt European costume. In the country every peasant possesses a gun, and shooting as they do from childhood, they are mostly very fine shots. They love the chase, and shoot everything they can, for the country is full of all kinds of birds and animals. ”

“ Some indulgent mothers make silk blouses for their sons, and embroider them with cross-stitch patterns in colored floss, as was the fashion a number of years ago, when a patriotic outburst of sentiment was expressed by the adoption of the "national costume," for house wear, by adults of both sexes. From this period dates also, no doubt, that style of "peasant dress" which can be seen occasionally, in unfashionable summer resorts, on girls not of the highest class by any means, and which the city shops furnish in abundance as genuine to misguided foreigners. ”

“ The Queen admired greatly many of the peasant costumes, often as serviceable and durable as they were becoming, which she saw in Germany. She expressed the regret so often uttered by English travellers that English labourers and workers at handicrafts, in place of retaining a dress of their own, have long ago adopted a tawdry version of the fashions of the upper classes. Unfortunately the practice is fast becoming universal. ”

“ Her costume was an odd admixture of the European and the Oriental. She wore trowsers of pale blue cotton flowered with yellow; and an antery of light green striped with white, and edged with a fringe of pink floss silk; while her jacket, which was the production of a Parisian dress-maker, was of dove-coloured satin, thickly wadded, and furnished with a deep cape, and a pair of immense sleeves, fastened at the wrists with diamond studs. But the most striking feature of the costume in the Imperial Palaces is the head-dress. Nothing can be imagined more hideous! ”

“ While the rich man’s clothing alters with every fancy of the tailors, the poor man’s garments, fewer and cheaper, change slowly in the ages. An old Lincolnshire peasant wearing his smock frock and leathern gaiters might pass unnoted in a peasant crowd of centuries ago. Here and there in Europe we find in the 20th century a peasantry in whose clothing fashion seems to have been suddenly stayed. A Breton peasant in his holiday dress gives us a man of the late 17th century, even as an Irish peasant may keep the breeches, shoes and tailed coat of the early 19th. ”

“ Of the picturesqueness and oddity of the Bavarian peasants' costumes, nothing but a picture can give you any idea. You can imagine the men in tight breeches, buttoned below the knee, jackets of the jockey cut, and both jacket and waistcoat covered with big metal buttons, sometimes coins, as thickly as can be sewed on: but the women defy the pen; a Bavarian peasant woman, in holiday dress, is the most fearfully and wonderfully made object in the universe. ”

“ I know not why it is that the three ugliest pieces of costume ever invented, the dress-coat, the trousers, and the bonnet, all of which we owe to the French, have been accepted all over Europe, to the exclusion of every national costume. ”

“ Ill, indeed, does it accord with the trim, compact, easily-portable costume of our day, and a miserable imitation, it is of the flowing hair that, in days of yore, fell naturally and gracefully upon the broad lace collar turned down over the velvet or satin short-cloak of the cavaliers and appropriately adorning shoulders upon which, with equal fitness, drooped a long, waving plume, from the wide-brimmed, steeple-crowned, picturesque hat that completed the costume. ”

“ As it was a holiday, the peasants who passed us were in their gayest costume, the men with their full coloured waistcoat sleeves, the young girls with their hair braided across their brows, and the black riband dividing it from the enormous mass behind, for they wear their own tresses plaited over a foundation of wool, which gives them an unnatural bulk; but as they are commonly fresh and good-looking, not absolutely unbecoming. ”