The Dutch 'Klederdracht'

Painted by Carola van Ham, 1610

Maybe one of the most popular touristic villages in the Netherlands is Volendam. Volendam is known for their musicality, since many dutch-singing artist are from Volendam whom are widely known in the Netherlands, and some even in Germany, so you can say The Netherlands has some real world famous celebrities. But as much as we like the music from Volendam, we wanted to write this blog about the traditional clothing (klederdracht) which was worn in Volendam until approximately mid-twentieth century by most inhabitants.

After the fifties of the nineteenth century Volendam was more and more influenced by the ‘common’ clothing in The Netherlands. People in Volendam started to wear less and less traditional clothing. More women replaced their traditional upper-body clothing for a ‘normal’ blue or black sweater. This was, mockingly, called ‘half fish, half human’ by the older people in Volendam (considering Volendam is a fishing village). However, this marked the run-up to the end of the wearing of traditional clothing of Volendam. The traditional clothing is nowadays a popular tourist attraction in Volendam.

History and heritage transmit different thing to different audiences (Lowenthal, 1998). The traditional clothing seen from historical perspective was transmitted from the elders to their offspring, because it was their culture and a use. The traditional clothing seen from a heritage perspective is the clothing tourists can try on when they visit Volendam and often go on pictures with. The traditional clothing in Volendam was not only worn by the Volendammers, but by most people in the area. The first annotation of traditional clothing in writings is from the eighteenth century, before that they also wore the traditional clothing, but everyone did, so it was not remarkable enough to write about.



The clothing, especially the women’s clothing became popular abroad, because of the many painters which stayed in Volendam around 1900. Their paintings spread around the world and together with advertisement of travel agencies, the traditional clothing became a symbol of The Netherlands. The image of a woman with traditional clothing on in front of a windmill and a tulip field became the standard. (see picture)

“Het zou even zoo dwaas zijn die oude kleedij met geweld te willen verbieden, als ze, daar waar ze uit zich zelf verdwenen is, weer te willen doen herleven. En dit geldt voor alles wat ons het voorgeslacht liet. Slechts datgene waarin de algemeene waarheid leeft, blijf, en krijgt op zijn tijd zijn nieuwe kleed, kan zich, op zijn tijd opnieuwe verjongen en zich dan weer doen onderscheiden.” (Molkenboek, 1917)

“It would be even so foolish to forbid that old clothing by force, if they, where it disappeared itself, wanted to revive it. And this applies to everything our ancestry left us. Only that in which the general truth lives, stays, and gets new clothing when it’s time, can rejuvenate and distinguish itself again when it’s time” (Molkenbroek, 1917)

The quote above is from a dutch writer, T.H. Molenbroek, who wrote a book about the national traditional clothing of The Netherlands. He organized a national celebration for traditional clothing in 1912. In his book is is very certain that the traditional clothing belongs to the monuments our ancestors left us and should stay part of our joint past. He was already engaged in the disappearing of the traditional clothing back in the early 1900’s. However, he realizes it may come back some day and be a part of the lives of people again. You could say the traditional clothing is still part of the lives of people in Volendam. People are making money of it, by cultivating it. Tourists can hire a suit and take traditional pictures with it for money.

The dutch traditional clothing is something that has stayed in our lieux de mémoires (Nora, 1989), even if people don’t wear it in their daily lives anymore. The wearing of traditional clothing may be history, the memory of it is not, and made the traditional clothing part of people’s heritage by cultivating it. This is. of course, one of the many, many examples there are where history meets heritage and the other way around. Can you think of an example where a historic costume became a cultivated heritage?

Written by,
SL, MB & SB

References

Harvey, D. C. (2001). Heritage pasts and heritage presents: temporality, meaning and the scope of heritage studies. International journal of heritage studies, 7(4), 319-338.

Lowenthal, D. (1998). The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge University Press.

Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. Representations, 7-24.

Molkenboer, T. (1917). De Nederlandsche nationale kleederdrachten (Vol. 71). JM Meulenhoff.