DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22262#0115
AAGOT NOSS
Retired curator
THE TRANSITION OF TRADITIONAL FOLK DRESS
TO THE BUNAD IN WEST TELEMARK
INTRODUCTION
When the traditional folk dress was replaced with town wear, a movement to sus-
tain the dress tradition, at least partly, was initiated, leading on to the emergence
of the bunad (1910-1920s in West Telemark). The bunad was a festive apparel for spe-
cial occasions adapted to the social habits of our own time. Norwegian nationalism
promoted at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Hulda Garborg,
champion of the folk dance and folk dress revival movement, reąuired that the bunad
garments should be made of woollen fabrics and adorned with woollen embroidery
I carried out research surveying women's folk dress and its tradition in West
Telemark before town wear and the bunad appeared, that is from the mid-seven-
teenth century to the 1920s. With a few exceptions, garments surviving in private
homes or at museums date no farther back than the second half of the eighteenth
century. However, some of the head silver (lad), headdress and jewellery reviewed
were older.
The most important source of, and the basis for, my discussion of regional dress of
West Telemark was my own fieldwork. Additional sources include photographs, ar-
tistic representation, manuscripts and archival records such as county, municipal
and parochial records, wills and probate court registers with their inventories of the
estate of deceased persons.
My fieldwork began in Vinje in 1963,1964 and 1965, and in Lardal 1963,1965 and
1969. These areas were the base for a detailed survey, supplemented by research into
other areas of West Telemark. The fieldwork involved cataloguing and photograph-
ing individual garments as well as investigating out their makers, owners and wear-
ers, date of creation, occasion for which they were made and the way they were used.
The oldest person interviewed was born in 1878, most were born between 1880 and
1910, with only a few being younger.
113
Retired curator
THE TRANSITION OF TRADITIONAL FOLK DRESS
TO THE BUNAD IN WEST TELEMARK
INTRODUCTION
When the traditional folk dress was replaced with town wear, a movement to sus-
tain the dress tradition, at least partly, was initiated, leading on to the emergence
of the bunad (1910-1920s in West Telemark). The bunad was a festive apparel for spe-
cial occasions adapted to the social habits of our own time. Norwegian nationalism
promoted at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Hulda Garborg,
champion of the folk dance and folk dress revival movement, reąuired that the bunad
garments should be made of woollen fabrics and adorned with woollen embroidery
I carried out research surveying women's folk dress and its tradition in West
Telemark before town wear and the bunad appeared, that is from the mid-seven-
teenth century to the 1920s. With a few exceptions, garments surviving in private
homes or at museums date no farther back than the second half of the eighteenth
century. However, some of the head silver (lad), headdress and jewellery reviewed
were older.
The most important source of, and the basis for, my discussion of regional dress of
West Telemark was my own fieldwork. Additional sources include photographs, ar-
tistic representation, manuscripts and archival records such as county, municipal
and parochial records, wills and probate court registers with their inventories of the
estate of deceased persons.
My fieldwork began in Vinje in 1963,1964 and 1965, and in Lardal 1963,1965 and
1969. These areas were the base for a detailed survey, supplemented by research into
other areas of West Telemark. The fieldwork involved cataloguing and photograph-
ing individual garments as well as investigating out their makers, owners and wear-
ers, date of creation, occasion for which they were made and the way they were used.
The oldest person interviewed was born in 1878, most were born between 1880 and
1910, with only a few being younger.
113