Jaarboek Kostuum 2017

Table of Contents

1. Jacco Hooikammer
   ‘But it’s still a newborn’
   Mourning in Staphorst for stillborn babies and newborn children who died unbaptized, from circa 1900 to the present day

   This article is a record of the mores in the matter of dress in Staphorst and Rouveen after the death of newborn or stillborn children. The main subject are the clothes, but the stories behind the clothes are also important. Participant observation was no longer possible in the case of this research. People’s memories were used, and a few very brief written sources. Historical depictions were not available.

   Descriptions are given of how the child was dressed for burial and what the family wore for mourning. The length and intensity of mourning are also charted. Particular dress codes applied to certain moments after death, such as the funeral. This also applied to the general practice of ‘churching’ which was still maintained in Staphorst. This was the first occasion on which the mother visited the church after the death of a stillborn baby or a newborn child that had died unbaptized.

   During the twentieth century child mortality decreased, but its impact seemed to increase. Rituals that were no longer understood, such as churching, were done away with. Mourning became more a matter of sentiment. The duration and intensity of mourning came to depend on the need felt for it. This article goes to show that mores within regional dress are always changing.

2. Trudie Rosa de Carvalho
   The hats of Queen Beatrix
   

   This article focuses on the hats worn by Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands, during her reign from 1980 to 2002. The first part of the article is mainly descriptive. The next is an examination of the symbolism inherent in the wardrobe of Queen Beatrix. The last part focuses on the creative process of hat making.

   Beatrix’ clothes play an important role in positioning her in her public role as Queen, and the hat is the most visible and prominent of her accessories. The number of hats needed in her functional wardrobe is much larger than for other contemporary hat wearers. The article also looks into the requirements that a royal hat must satisfy. Next, it discusses the moments where the Queen appears without a hat. Royal etiquette is very particular about the occasions that require or forbid her to wear a hat in public. For the woman in the street, the wearing of hats receded sharply in the nineteen sixties, for many different reasons, and it was not until the nineteen eighties that hats reappeared. Beatrix, however, has never stopped wearing her hats, as princess, then as queen, and after her son came to the throne as princess again. The beginning of her reign coincided with the return of the hat in streetwear in the Netherlands in the early nineteen eighties.

   The strong and timeless silhouette of Queen Beatrix is extremely characteristic, and instantly familiar to all the Dutch. This silhouette is the fruit of long years of close collaboration between the Queen and her couturiers and hatters. Hatters Harry Scheltens and Suzanne Moulijn, and dresser Emy Bloemheuvel have had the greatest influence of the crowning accessory in of her any outfits. Over the years, the hats slowly evolve; new shapes and lines appear, and occasionally elements or models from early periods reappear or are quoted. Following the media pictures of Queen Beatrix over the years of her reign, it becomes apparent that some hats, or example within a period of ca. ten years, are worn again and again.

   The closing section of the article focuses on the Queen's three principal hatters, who tell of the subtle creative process of action and reaction between hatters and monarch. The results of this collaboration were, and continue to be, royal hats that are more than functional and ceremonial headwear; they can be seen as sculptured, architectural objects, works of art composed of lines, proportions and fabric. Sadly, Harry Scheltens and Theresia Vreugdenhil are now voices from the past. But the author is grateful to Suzanne Moulijn for her generous help in describing how she relates to her craft, how she came to work for the Queen, and all details involved in the creation and production of a royal hat. Through her description it is possible for the reader to share the creative process, the methods, the making, and the search for the perfect colour.

3. Johan de Bruijn
   Bernard F. Eilers: photographer of a new era
   A visual essay

   This visual essay contains photographs by Bernhard Eilers, Dutch ‘impressionist’ photographer and self-appointed ‘craftsman’. He tried to capture social progress in many ways but was also interested in ‘slow’ topics like Dutch regional costume. Recently, high resolution scans of his work have been made available through the Image Library of the Amsterdam City Archives.

4. Gré Boerlage-Laan
   Simple lace on 18th-century women's caps
   

   The subject of this article is a specific type of 18th-century Dutch cap now called boomhul. This cap was worn in the Zaan region, to the north of Amsterdam. A number of these caps are part of the collection of the Zaanlandse Oudheidkundige Vereniging, hosted by the Zaans Museum, and were examined for this article.

   The boomhul had a wide, visor-like strip over the forehead, decorated with a strip of narrow, rather plain lace; it was held in place by the oorijzer, the typically Dutch metal cap frame. Here well-deserved attention, usually claimed by the expensive luxury lace, is given to this simple lace.

   The cap known as boomhul in the 19th century, was called kuifmuts in the 18th; the shape is the same: a flat oval over the back of the head surrounded by a wide strip forming a visor over the forehead. It may be a simplified version of the very fashionable fontange, adapted for middle-class women. The Zaan region was extremely prosperous in the 18th century, and not only middle-class women, but also their maids and the village women could afford colourful clothes and (simple) lace. They bought the lace in Amsterdam, locally in the small shops or from pedlars. Lace manufactured in Flanders or France was bought new as well as second-hand. The following types of lace may be found on the boomhul:

   • Lace from Flanders, perhaps Antwerp, dated in the early 18th century; the threads of the pattern are also used for the ground (a fond à cinq trous), but pins are only used for the pattern. The ground makes it easy to-wash and thus suitable for caps.
   • Binche, which has the same ground as Valenciennes lace, to be recognized by its ‘snowflakes’ ground.
   • Point de Lille is from the 19th century and made in France, but is found on an 18th-century cap. Its tulle ground is inexpensive, being worked on pins which saves work.
   • Mechelse (Malines) lace has its pattern outlined in a thicker yarn. Again only the pattern is worked on pins, not the ground. Malines lace was very expensive, with very difficult patterns made in high-quality yarn.
   • A cheaper French variation, with a pattern like Malines, but with a simple tulle ground known as fond clair.
   • An early Flemish lace, a Valenciennes on a fond à cinq trous.
   • ‘Stropkant’, a plain but graceful lace, dating back to the 17th century.
   • A nice example of woven lace, comparable to the bobbin laces.
   • Machine-woven band with a lace pattern darned into it by hand.
   • A nice piece of reused 17th- century lace, Flemish or Dutch, on a Paris ground, with a duck on either side of the main pattern.

   The middle classes stopped wearing the kuifmuts in the 19th century. However, in regional dress it remained in use under the name boomhul in Volendam into the 20th century.

5. Marjolein Koek
   Support and silhouette
   Costume mounting in a museum context

   Dress and fashion exhibitions have become very popular in recent years. They have triggered interesting developments in costume mounting, which has come to play an important part in the displaying of costume.

   The first purpose of costume mounting is to support (fragile) objects for the duration of the exhibition on a museum mannequin; proper support is part of good conservation procedures, necessary to ensure the preservation of the object. The second aim is to provide the correct silhouette under the garments. Costumes in museum collections often serve as examples of the history of fashion, and thus of the look of their period. In each case, the conservation specialists need to find the right balance between these two goals.

   This article gives an update on recent creative and technical developments in costume mounting, with no ambition to be either a complete overview or a prescriptive guideline. Every museum and every collection needs, after all, to work within its own possibilities and limitations. What the article does attempt is offering a review of different approaches to costume mounting, illustrated with Dutch and international examples. Some of the problems addressed are those of working with preformed period mannequins or supporting the volume of historical skirts and dresses, and an interesting example of reuse of a custom mannequin is given. Modern silhouettes are also discussed, with special problems such as too long legs or too narrow  waists. The article closes with a discussion of special supports for objects which are particularly fragile or have an extraordinary shape, and the role of unusual or innovative materials.

6. Ingrid Grunnill
   Elegantia
   or Magazine for fashion, luxury and taste, for ladies

   The Dutch fashion magazine Elegantia appeared from January 1807 to June 1810. It was relaunched in the second half of 1814, but only survived until the end of that year.

   The fashion news and plates were copied from the French Journal des Dames et des Modes. Elegantia also contained articles on general subjects, fiction, and other types of plates, including knitting and embroidery patterns. The publisher, Evert Maaskamp, sold a large selection of these patterns in his shop on the Dam in Amsterdam He also published plates of Dutch regional dress because tourists kept asking for them.

   Elegantia was aimed at a fashionable elite, and provided a succession of plates of different kinds of clothes suited to the time of year. This pattern would hold true for fashion magazines for the rest of the 19th century.

   In the first months of the year we see the court and ball dresses for the winter. In spring these are succeeded by informal dresses for daywear. Many of these are in white cotton muslin, which was very fashionable in the first decades of the 19th century. However, the plates show that coloured and printed cottons were also worn, as were silk and wool. One of the clichés of fashion history is that fashionable women of this period dressed exclusively in thin white cotton, winter and summer. However, the fashion plates prove that this is not true.

   In autumn the warm winter coats appear in the magazine. As the years progress, winter clothes are more and more often lined and decorated with expensive fur. Fur was a status symbol, as were the warm and exotic kashmir shawls with their many-coloured borders of woven-in patterns. These were carried over the arm even in warm weather, just to show them off. In this same period European imitations of these shawls begin to appear on the market.

   From 1808 onwards the shawls were cut up to use the fabric, for instance for gentlemen’s waistcoats. The patterned parts were used to make bonnets, but the patterns were also imitated on all kinds of materials, from velvet to feathers. In 1809 Parisian women even started to wear entire dresses made from kashmir shawls.

   Short hair was fashionable for women but not permitted for formal occasions, when wigs and hair pieces would be used. Women could go hatless in public, or wore white caps. The plates from 1814 show how fashion has evolved in the four intervening years: the crowns of bonnets have grown much larger and the hems of dresses have become more elaborately decorated.

   The tone of the texts in Elegantia is patronising towards women. Their role as wives and mothers is strongly emphasised. This reflects a return to pre-revolutionary values.

   After 1814 no fashion magazine will appear in the Netherlands for twenty years. This may be because a magazine like Elegantia was considered too frivolous, or because it was too expensive in a less prosperous period in Dutch history. Besides, Elegantia was only affordable for ladies from a small, wealthy class, who may have preferred to subscribe to the Journal des Dames et des Modes.