FashioNordic: Folk Costume as Performance of Genealogy and Place

Abstract

This article elaborates on the embodiment of heritage via dressing practices in several rural and urban Nordic communities in the United States. Getting dressed is a shared human practice that we engage in and repeat most days, and for special occasions, traditional dress, or folk costume, comes into particular focus. I approach dressing in folk costume as a "situated embodied practice," a mode of performance that exposes the way value judgments of the body are informed by societal notions of dress, with body and dress understood as socially constructed entities that shape each other. Based on attention to an embodied heritage that women create, make, view, discuss, and wear, I suggest that folk costumes from Sweden and its neighboring countries are increasingly individualized in the United States; that traditional dress is in fashion; and that garments, patterns, materials, and designs are used to illustrate complex family trees, places of belonging, and key experiences in life. and she would tell me how it took several months to make it, and it's, as you can see (touching the woolen embroidery), that would take quite a while, and then when it was all finished, they presented it to her, and she wore it at the next festivity. Well she was much shorter; I'm five [feet] ten [inches] and she was five [feet] two [inches].

Women’s Czech Folk Costume: Negotiating Ambivalence and White Ethnicity in the Midwest

“…For example, participants often aimed for exact copies of historic costumes from regions where their ancestors came from, rejecting individual freedom or style change. Similar to other white ethnic groups who embraced their heritage through costume (Aspelund, 2011; Eriksen, 2004; Gradén, 2014; Saliklis, 1999; Shukla, 2015; Williams, 1996), the Czech women expressed disdain when viewing others wearing Czech costumes that differed from the historic costumes, which they perceived as not correct or not authentic.…”

“…Costumes worn in the United States were much more individualized as compared to those worn in Sweden. The costumes symbolized “kinship, community, and dedication to craft,” they “illuminated social stratification,” and they highlighted that while the basic form remained similar, there are many variations, nuances, and changes that “embody multivalent identities, articulate many geographic places,” and contribute to the costumes’ evolving meanings (Gradén, 2014, p. 383).…”

This is Not a Costume

“…13. For folkloristic examinations of Nordic dress in the U.S. diaspora, see Gradén (2011Gradén ( , 2014. 14.…”

Crafting Collections between Vernacular and Institutional Practice

“…Folk dress collections, like dress in general, can be understood as stylized performances of who we are. Analyzed as performance-an activity that is framed, presented, highlighted and displayed before an audience-traditional dress collections, like dress, is affective communication (Gradén 2014, Shukla 2015, cf. Schechner 2006.…”

“…The second perspective shows how the development of new materials and fabrics, fashion influences, tools, handbooks, and manuals has affected and spurred changes in dress traditions (Bergman 2005, Hol Haugen 2006, Eldvik 2014, Liby 2018. The third approach highlights people's crafting of heritage and identities through their situated performances of traditional dress (Gradén 2014, 2017, Shukla 2015. In studies of material objects preserved in museums, Gunnar Almevik has pointed to the hand-made reconstruction as an avenue to understanding the context of the object.…”