In Bohemia, May Day was the young women's opportunity to show off their hand- made wardrobes. During the first part of the nineteenth century most peasant clothing was still made of linen spun from flax each family grew for their own use. After the flax was prepared for spinning the women in the family would spin it -- on hand spindles while they were in the pastures watching geese and cattle or on spinning wheels in the house. The finer the thread was spun the more-talented was the spinner. Finest threads were made into sheer fabrics used for blouses which were worn with great pride on "dress-up" occasions. Heavier threads were used for skirts, shirts, aprons and "everyday" clothing.
In Bozema Nemcova's book about a 19th century Bohemian family (Title is: Granny) the grandmother says, "A skirt that lasts less than 25 years is no skirt at all."
In some parts of German Bohemia the girls would wear their best clothing on May Day, starting with the plainest "good" costume. They would change their clothes several times during the day, ending with their most elaborately decorated Tracht -- (folk dress) -- which might have silk ribbons, velvet and colorful embroidery (sometimes even with precious golden or silver thread) as decoration. The girls who had the most changes of clothing and the most beautifully made Tracht were actually displaying their "talents" as future wives and the wealth of their families (the size of their dowries) and they were the ones the boys supposedly wanted to marry....
By the middle of the nineteenth century cheap cotton fabrics from England and other "factory-made" textiles replaced most of the hand-woven cloth used by peasants. Peasant girls began to dress in the fashion of the day, often purchased from a dressmaker, rather than spend the many hours needed to make a traditional wardrobe. The skirts worn with Tracht also changed during that time - the plain colored skirts trimmed with ribbons and embroidery were replaced by colorful silk floral prints.
I don't know if the traditional May Day "fashion parade" continued after hand- made clothing began to be replaced with "ready-to-wear."
A little bit of trivia: During the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century it was popular for one of the petticoats under a woman's skirt to be red.
From: Karen Hob
More on Trachten: traditional costumes, native dress.
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