Who Is the French Fashion Group

Costumes Nationaux de Alsace, Brittany, Calvados, Landes, Pyrénnées region, Normandy, Champagne-Ardenne, Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Bourgogne, Bresse, Bourbonnais, Savoy, Auvergne, Basque Country and others.

Traditional French national costumes. Les costumes regionaux de la France. Costumes traditionnels français.

BRITTANY

French traditional clothing, Quimper, Brittany, Finistère, folk costume, — Brittany. Region of Quimper, Département Finistère.

French traditional clothing, Pont-l'Abbé, Brittany, Finistère, folk costume, — Brittany. Region of Quimper, Département Finistère.

Brittany (Breton Breizh) is a West French region. Today it consists of the departments Côtes-d'Armor (bret. Aodoù-an-Arvor), Finistère (bret. Penn-ar-Bed), Ille-et-Vilaine (bret. Il-ha-Gwilen) and Morbihan (bret. Mor-bihan). Capital of the region is Rennes (bret. Roazhon). The department of Loire-Atlantique (bret. Liger-Atlantel), which belongs to the historical Bretagne but not to the modernistic administrative region of the aforementioned name, was split off in 1941 together with the original Breton upper-case letter Nantes (bret. Naoned).

Continuing

NORMANDY

Normandy, traditional clothing, costume, Avranches, Département Manche, — Normandy. Region of Avranches, Département Manche.

Normandy, traditional clothing, costume, Caux, Pays de Caux — Normandy. Region of Avranches, Département Manche.

Normandy is today the name of a French region. Since 996 A.D., forerunners have existed as a historical province in the north of France. The area is divided into the lower Seine surface area (the sometime region Haute-Normandie) northward of Paris and the country towards the w (quondam region Basse-Normandie) with the peninsula Cotentin. The Normandy region includes the French departments of Calvados, Eure, Manche, Orne and Seine-Maritime.

CHAMPAGNE

Champagne, Costume, France, traditional clothing, — Champagne.

Champagne-Ardenne is a old region in the northeast of France, which consisted of the departments Ardennes, Aube, Marne and Haute-Marne. It was named later the historical landscape of Champagne and the Ardennes mountains. Since 2016, the region has formed the western part of the new Grand Est region. Capital of the region was Châlons-en-Champagne, the largest and historically most important urban center is Reims.

ALSACE

Alsace, costume, traditional clothing, man, France — Alsace. Costume of a Homo.

Alsace, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France — Alsace. Costume of a Homo.

Alsace is a cultural and historical region from eastern French republic to the border with Germany and Switzerland. Information technology is made up of the Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin departments. Its inhabitants are called Alsaciens.

Continuing

LORRAINE

Nancy, Lorraine, France, costume, traditional clothing — Lorraine. Region of Nancy.

Lorraine is a mural in the northeast of French republic. Information technology is the primal part of the Yard Est region. From 1960 to the cease of 2015, Lorraine, which dates back to the historic Duchy of Lorraine, formed its ain region with the majuscule Metz, consisting of the departments of Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges.

FRANCHE-COMTE

Franche-Comte, costume, traditional clothing, man, France — Franche-Comté. Costume of a Woman.

Until 2015, Franche-Comté was a region in the east of France. It consisted of the départements of Doubs, Jura, Haute-Saône and Territoire de Belfort. Today the area belongs to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.

BURGUNDY

Burgundy, costume, traditional clothing, Man, France — Burgundy. Costume of a Human.

Burgundy, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France — Burgundy. Costume of a Human.

Burgundy (French Bourgogne) is a landscape in the centre of France. From 1956 to 2015, it was a region in its own right, made upwardly of the departments of Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire and Yonne. The capital was Dijon. The Burgundy region merged with the Franche-Comté region to course Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.

BRESSE

Bresse, Louhans, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France — Bresse. Region of Louhans.

Bresse is an old province in eastern France. Located between the regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, stretching from the Dombes in the south to the river Doubs in the due north and from the Saône in the west to the Jura in the east. The inhabitants of the landscape are chosen Bressans (or the female inhabitants Bressanes).

BOURBONNAIS

Bourbonnais, Bourbon, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France — Bourbonnais. Costume of a Adult female.

The Duchy of Bourbon, more than usually known as Bourbonnais, is a French historical and cultural region. The main town of this one-time province is Moulins and its territory corresponds approximately to the department of Allier in the Auvergne region, but some portions are located in neighbouring departments, such as Puy-de-Dôme and Cher (arrondissement de Saint-Amand-Montrond), which merged into the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in 2016.

SAVOY

French, Traditional clothing, Savoy, costume, Saint-Colomban-des-Villards — Savoy. Region of Saint-Colomban-des-Villards.

French, Traditional clothing, Savoy, costume, Saint-Jean-d'Arves, — Savoy. Region of Saint-Colomban-des-Villards.

Savoy (French Savoie, Italian Savoia, Francoprovençal Savouè) is a landscape which today essentially extends to the French départements of Haute-Savoie and Savoie in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

Saint-Colomban-des-Villards is a French municipality in the department of Savoie in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It is is situated almost 38 kilometres south-east of Chambéry and about twoscore kilometres due east-northeast of Grenoble on the Glandon, which originates in the municipality. Here lies the ski surface area Les Sybelles.

Saint-Sorlin-d'Arves is a municipality in the Savoy in France. It belongs to the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the Savoie department, the Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne arrondissement and the Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne canton.

Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise is a French district located in the Savoie section, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. It is located well-nigh 75 kilometres due east of Chambéry and about 39 kilometres due south-east of Albertville on the edge to the Valle d'Aosta in Italia.

AUVERGNE

Auvergne, Saint-Flour, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France, — Auvergne. Region of Saint-Flour, Département Cantal.

The Auvergne (Occitan Auvèrnhe) is a landscape and 1 of the historical provinces of central France, located in the heart of the Massif Central. From 1960 to 2015, Auvergne was an authoritative region made up of the departments of Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal, Haute-Loire and Allier. The capital of the region was Clermont-Ferrand.

BASQUE COUNTRY

Basque, Dantzariak, Dancer, costume, French, traditional clothing, — Basque dancer with hobby-horse. (Dantzariak)

Basque, Dancer, costume, French, traditional clothing, — Basque dancer with hobby-horse. (Dantzariak)

The Basque Land (Basque Euskal Herria or Euskadi, Spanish País Vasco or Vasconia, French Pays Basque) is a region located at the southern tip of the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic Bounding main on the territory of the modernistic states of Spain and France. The French Basque Country, in the Basque called Iparralde ("Northern Basque Country"), forms the western function of the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

SABLES D'OLONNE

Sables d'Olonne, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France, — A woman of Sables d'Olonne.

Les Sables-d'Olonne is a French port, line-fishing and bathing boondocks in the Vendée département in the Pays de la Loire region on the Atlantic Ocean.

PROVENCE

French, Traditional clothing, Provence, Arles, costume, — Provence. Adult female from Arles.

French, Traditional clothing, Provence, Tambourine player, costume, — Provence. Adult female from Arles.

The Provence extends from the Rhône via the Provençal foothills of the Alps and the coastal massif of the Maures to the Maritime Alps (Alpes Maritimes) and the Cottian Alps (Queyras and Haute Ubaye) on the edge with the Italian regions of Piedmont and Liguria.

Arles is a city on the banks of the Rhone in the Provence region of southern France. Information technology is famous equally a source of inspiration for Van Gogh'southward paintings. Arles was once the provincial majuscule of the Roman Empire and is likewise famous for the many remains of this period, including the amphitheatre of Arles, which now hosts theatrical performances, concerts and bullfights.

Nice, the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes département, is situated on the pebble-lined banks of the Baie des Anges on the French Riviera. The metropolis was founded by the Greeks and was a popular resort for the European upper grade in the 19th century.

The Farandole, from Provençal Farandoulo, is a historical Provençal folk trip the light fantastic toe in fast half-dozen/8 time, in which an open round dance, led by a dancer, dances various figures. The musical accompaniment is provided by a role player with a i-hand flute and a tambourine, backside whom the dancers are wandering through the streets. The dancers are danced in a chain of couples holding hands or connected by cloths. They move on in spirals and entanglements.

Hans Thoma, Kinderreigen, fandarole, — Children dancing in the round dance. Farandole. By Hans Thoma [Public domain]

Georges Bizet composed a cheerful Farandole in his acting music for Alphonse Daudet's L'Arlesienne. In the ballet Sleeping Beauty there is a Farandole at the starting time of the second act. Too in the opera "Mireille" by Charles Gounod a Farandole is played at the showtime of the second act.

Félix Gras, farandole, Avignon — Félix Gras, dansant la farandole, sous les remparts d'Avignon, avec sa femme et ses filles.

Félix Gras, dancing the farandole, under the ramparts of Avignon, with his married woman and daughters. Félix Gras (1844 – 1901) was a Provençal poet and writer. (Le costume en Provence by Jules-Charles Roux. Paris, Bloud 1909.)

BORDEAUX

Traditional, clothing, French, Bordeaux, costume, woman, France, — Early costume of a woman of Bordeaux.

Bordeaux (Occitan Bordèu) is a university urban center and the political, economic and scientific centre of the French southwest. Its inhabitants call themselves Bordelais. It is famous for its Bordeaux wine and cuisine, but also for its architectural and cultural heritage.

PYRENEES

French, Pyrenees, Eaux-Bonnes, costume, traditional clothing, woman, France — Pyrenees Eaux-Bonnes: Costume of a married woman.

French, Pyrenees, Val d'Aran, costume, traditional clothing, France — Pyrenees Eaux-Bonnes: Costume of a married woman.

The Pyrenees are a mountain range in southwestern Europe. The Pyrenees concatenation crosses two regions and six French departments: from due east to west the Occitanie (Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Ariège, Haute-Garonne and Hautes-Pyrénées) and Nouvelle-Aquitaine (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) regions.

Eaux-Bonnes is a municipality in the Département Pyrénées-Atlantiques in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The municipality belongs to the district of Oloron-Sainte-Marie and the canton of Oloron-Sainte-Marie-2 (until 2015: County Laruns).. The inhabitants are called Eaux-Bonnais or Eaux-Bonnaises.

The Val d'Aran is a valley in the middle of the Spanish Pyrenees on the border with France. The valley is linked to the French Gascony not but geographically, only also culturally, linguistically and economically.

Arrien-en-Bethmale is a French municipality in the Ariège département in the Occitan region. It belongs to the county of Couserans Ouest and the arrondissement of Saint-Girons.

LOZÈRE

French, Traditional clothing, Lozère, costume, — Costume of a Man from Lozère.

The département of Lozère is the French département with the series number 48. Information technology is located in the south of the state in the Occitan region and is named afterwards the Mont Lozère massif in the Cevennes National Park.

CORSICA

French, Traditional clothing, Corsica, costume, — Corsica. Costume of a Woman.

Corsica (French: Corse) is an island in the Mediterranean Ocean, largely made up of high mountains, and politically a French territorial entity with special status.

Région de l'Alsace en France.

Les costumes regionaux de la France. Deux cents aquarelles par K. De Gardilanne et East.W. Moffat. Avec united nations texte historique par Henry Royère et une préface par la Princesse Bibesco.

Wissembourg,Alsace,Paysanne,Peasant,Traditional, Traditionnel,Costumes,france,Département Bas-Rhin — Alsace. Homme de Wissembourg. Man of Wissembourg.

Brittany region.

Fashion History, Costume history — Brittany costumes

Costumes des Pyrénnées.

Costumes des Pyrénées dessinés d'après nature & lithographiés par Édouard Pingret. Paris: Gihaut frères, 1834.

Pau,france,traditional,traditionnel,costume,pyrenees,costumes des pyrénnées,french,folk,dresses,Édouard pingret — Environs de Pau.

Contrebandier,france,traditional,traditionnel,costume,pyrenees,costumes des pyrénnées,french,folk,dresses,Édouard pingret — Environs de Pau.

Traditional French national costumes. Costumes traditionnels français.

past André Varagnac. Banana curator of the National Museum of Folklore Paris. English translation by Mary Chamot.

An old French proverb says: the habit does not make the monk; the wisdom of our forefathers implied that a man's clothes can mislead united states of america as to his personality.

Gallic cock, Georg Belwe, Steglitzer Werkstatt, Moderne Reklame, — Gallic erect, during the french Revolution heraldic animal and symbol of the French people, with reference to the Latin gallus, which means rooster and Gaul at the same time. Original of the graphic by Georg Belwe. Modern advertising. Steglitz workshop. 1903.

While the proverb is true where it concerns individuals, information technology is simulated when practical collectively the traditional costume does in fact evoke the past life of the social group which wore it for those who can understand its meaning. I volition not get as far every bit to say that national costumes are equal to the history of a people : an article of wear is non a page of history.

Alsacienne, clothing, Traditional, French national costume, — Costume Alsace.

However, expect at the Bresse hat (plate 18): this head-gear which was worn by the peasant women on the banks of the Saône as late as the nineteenth century seems incredible, unless nosotros recollect that sure French provinces were included, together with Flanders, in the Spanish Empire. M. Gabriel Jeanton (Gabriel Jeanton (1881-1943), the skillful on folklore, has shown u.s. that the Spanish duennas wore this sort of top-knot with blackness lace. The head-dress was adopted by the rich women of Flanders, passed from in that location to the Franche-Comté and descended every bit far equally Bresse; information technology is one of the most picturesque features of the costume which is frequently worn by members of regionalist groups.

Throughout their history the people have collected scrap by flake, past claw or by crook, the elements of new costumes. Who amongst united states of america, does not collect « souvenirs » during our travels? On our return we find our baggage bursting with miscellaneous objects. Information technology is the same with regard to national costumes.—In the course of their long life nations not only surround themselves with just article of clothing on their persons a drove of objects the significance of which they would be unable to explain.

Traditional, French national costume, Western Loire, folk, clothing — Woman from Guérande. Region Western Loire.

How can nosotros read that strange book, — the traditional dress? As nosotros have already indicated in a previous publication on Central Europe, any traditional apparel presents prehistoric features, and aspects inherited from fairly contempo history, sometimes even contemporary fashions. Experts know well that such a mixture constitutes folk-lore. But equally far equally costumes go this duality of origin is more apparent in France than in Cardinal of Eastern Europe. There are two reasons for this which I will effort to indicate.

First of all it should be borne in heed that France has always been one of the concluding points of invasions. Take a map of Europe, or better still, a map of Europe and Asia : the old appears to exist a prolongation, or cape projecting from the Asiatic continent towards the Atlantic in the West. At the very terminate of this immense greatcoat we find the final outpost, a kind of peninsula, which is France. She has served every bit final buffer to many prehistoric and historic adventures.

Traditional, French national costume, clothing, Belle Isle, Brittany, — Adult female in Sun Outfit from Belle Island en Mer, Brittany, France.

Periodically great waves of humanity, coming from the Asiatic steppes, broke against her mountains, covered with forests, or on her western shores where the earth ends and in that location is zippo simply the Atlantic beyond the reefs. They were the people of the steppes, nomads, who rode minor, sturdy horses and galloped across the continent. Consult the map again: a vast, limitless plain stretches west beyond the mountains of the Ural and the buttresses of the Caucasus, Russia, Poland, Frg, Belgium, the provinces of Artois and Picardy, France equally far equally Paris, the Loire, Poitou and Aquitaine.

It is one of the highways forth which formerly countless covered wagons fatigued by oxen must have passed, trekking in the fashion of the Boers or Americans trailing westward. As a matter of fact, man did not wait for wheels in order to travel. The European vicious living in the wild bush, pushed forrad forth the banks of big rivers similar the Danube, conveying first his flint and later his bronze axes.

Small groups moved from lake to lake, and congenital dwellings on stacks; others erected enclosures of cyclopean masonry on ridges bounded by two valleys. All these people knew how to spin and weave; they wore dress. The shape of their cranium is still constitute among certain types in France to day and, believe me, certain fashions in wearing apparel also. Since the end of the Stone Historic period a number of diverse races take lived side by side in French republic. Fifty-fifty in prehistoric times they must have been variously clothed. See the multifariousness in their funeral rites: at certain times in certain regions the dead were buried; at other times or in other parts of the land they were cremated. Archaeologists have sometimes unearthed collective burial grounds, and sometimes individual tombs. It is unbelievable that the people who honored their dead so differently should have been clothed in a uniform manner; French republic presents more homo contrasts in spite of her present national unity than any country in Europe.

French national costume, Traditional, clothing, Belle Isle, Brittany, — Sardine Fisherman from Belle Isle, Brittany, France.

The 2d reason for the variety of French traditional costumes is of more recent date. We must not forget that the national history of France is i of the longest in Europe. For a considerable time the aristocrat classes, and especially sovereign persons who kept courts, obviously having their own fashions, had constantly influenced the dress of the population by reason of their prestige and the want of the humble to imitate their betters. Can we explain this action simply by the splendor of Versailles and the Roi Soleil? Things were not so uncomplicated until the terminal few centuries, and information technology is but in the nineteenth century that France had acquired her nowadays form. Up till and then entire provinces were being influenced by other sovereign centers. Nosotros must realize how late the centralization of France was accomplished. Not only were important fractions of the French masses influenced by neighboring empires for a long time as I have remarked regarding the Bresse hat; merely during all the Middle Ages princes and elementary feudal lords kept their own small courts, where the arts and consequently fashions evolved in a detail manner.

With the exception of the mountain and coastal regions where life has always been hard, peasant costume had been likewise long under aristocratic influence not to have lost near of its archaism. How interesting information technology would be if a student of folk-lore collaborated with a historian to decide the relative epoch and the probable origin of our regional costume. A new light would be thrown on the currents of civilization in these unknown times, and the curve of a coif, or the pinking of a bonnet would help to discover the old lines of political and economic forces which became and then entangled in a Europe giving birth to nationalities.

Lyon, clothing, Traditional, French national costumes, — Women from of Lyon.

Everyone knows that the great States might have been differently constituted on the Continent than actually happened. For case the court of Burgundy might have go a royal court with a trivial intelligence and not much genius. And have we ever studied what ancient Lotharingia meant?* Does anyone call back that a part of the provinces of the Kingdom of France were considered a foreign country up to the Revolution as far as custom duties went, for their having refused to contribute towards the ransom of Rex Jean le Bon, imprisoned past the English during the Hundred Twelvemonth'south War? All this evokes the motley of French traditional costume.

In add-on to today's Lorraine, the Carolingian Lotharingia also included Saarland, Luxembourg, Trier and the areas on the lower reaches of the Moselle, Wallonia, the Lower Rhine with Aachen, Cologne and Duisburg and the southward of the Netherlands in the area of Maastricht, Eindhoven, Breda.

Caen, Calvados, clothing, Traditional, French national costumes, — Woman costumes of Caen. Département Calvados

Here and so, is the infinitely complex canvas which, if nosotros were in a position to recognize and follow each thread separately, would allow us to determine the origin and evolution of every commodity of these costumes. Shall nosotros attempt this fine dissection? Whole volumes and the patient lives of scholars would hardly suffice. To those who would endeavor to follow these researches, I should recommend first of alia study of the treatise of Quicherat (French historian and archeologist 1814 – 1882.) and especially that of Camille Enlart (1862 – 1927, was a French fine art historian.) on the history of costume. But such is not the aim of the present volume.

To begin with, the researches that I accept mentioned and which will presently exist undertaken nether the auspices of the « Musee National des Arts et Traditions Populaires » directed by M. Georges Henri Riviere have been barely sketched then far. Works relating to local costumes are numerous (i) but of varying importance. I may say that books giving scientific descriptions and notably classifications of old types of costumes according to zones are extremely rare equally regards the French provinces. Nether these conditions, how is information technology possible always to fill the lacunae, since the daily wearing of traditional costume has become a memory in most French departments?

Students are generally advised to check the regional revivals by comparing them with nineteenth century descriptions and especially with the numerous lithographs and romantic engravings on i hand, and with old photographs taken earlier 1900 on the other. This is very excellent advice, but it is only part of the necessary work. Photographs are rarely accurately dated and located, even when they practise not deal with figures dressed for an edition of postal service cards. Usually they but serve to confirm information already acquired.

Landes, Aquitaine, clothing, Traditional, French national costumes, — Inhabitants of the Landes. French republic Aquitaine region.

As to the descriptions by travelers of the last century, these, similar the romantic pictures, nearly always lack really scientific precision. The details must exist verified one by one from another source of information. Our last hope of achieving more than knowledge lies in the old peasant clothes stored away in cupboards and attics. As a result of the many expeditions, peculiarly in Sologne, conducted by him, Yard. Riviere visualizes the possibility of reaching in another 10 years or then, the marvelous source of documentation gathered from systematic inquiries held on the spot past specialists, and of comparing the results of these inquiries with data nerveless from marriage contracts and from inventories of possessions officially drawn upwardly after decease.

Such is the state of our noesis and ignorance, allowing for a few occasional successes; and we ourselves were determined to envisage these questions simply later several years of hard work forth the lines already described. But human proposes and God disposes: at times public taste is alee of the specialist's piece of work. What miserable artisans we all are, each 1 in his atelier, where he dreams of an eternity of piece of work before him! Yard. Lucien Febvre has described this aspect of our life very well. The artisan is a bit of a wizard in his fashion; simply even if he is a master craftsman he tin but exist an amateur wizard. At that place are times when his pot boils over and upsets everything.
And such is the position of folk-lore experts to-24-hour interval.

The beloved of tradition is condign fashionable, and like all fashions is imperious. Fashion is a spoilt child. She wants everything at once. It is then that the proficient regionalists demur and protest against this fever: they take spent dozens of years collecting the dress and ornaments of their region. They have had to fight against the false costumes of their locality. They have succeeded in reconstructing the final truthful costume worn past the peasant women of a sure village, or village. And all of a sudden way arrives from Paris and says: « What a lovely idea for the modiste. This coif will make the sweetest lid for Deauville! »

Bayonne, clothing, Traditional, French national costumes, — Femme de Bayonne. 16ème siècle. D'après une estampe de la Bibliothèque nationale.

Information technology is useless crying out or covering our faces at that. Such is life, the life that sweeps like a torrent over our customs. Permit science proceed her slow march; but she has no right to withhold the issue of her researches, nevertheless incomplete or rudimentary. Let us have museums, enough of them, where authentic costumes are pinned together in drinking glass cases like immense collywobbles. Meanwhile the street will exist full of dresses which vaguely evoke an ancient province, and hats boldly inspired by this or that coif. And these accurate costumes will be imitated, very inaccurately no doubt, in our dance halls, our houses and at our fancy-apparel balls.

Our modern life which loves brilliant colors and secretly hates the banality which threatens our existence, thirsts for fantastic and gay visions which entreatment to the imagination of adults as colored albums and Épinal pictures* do to children. It is all a question of measure and common sense. M. Medvey has deliberately omitted to correspond the faces and bodies of the peasants in his costumes, and I can only praise him for it. The traditional costume of the French peasantry has go a relic, a relic for science, and it would be incommunicable to represent it in its natural rural environment, except in a tedious and brainy publication. I wish to tender warm thanks to my excellent collaborator, Madame Germaine Lesecq, whose accurate method and rare devotion enabled us to undertake the hard and delicate task of preparing the present work. Madame Henri Monceau has furnished valuable documentation for the Bourbonnais costume (Plate 19) and Madame Felix Chevrier has kindly helped us for Lorraine (Plate 11). I as well wish to thank Madame Laperrière who explained sure details of the Savoyard costume. I hope that all these will find here the expression of my sincere gratitude.

Moving picture sheets are the unmarried-folio prints (flat print) of the 18./nineteen. Century, most of which were handcoloured. As popular motion-picture show and later reading, they were widely used. Jean-Charles Pellerin — having been born in Épinal, named the printing house he founded in 1796, Imagerie d'Épinal.

Macon, Bresse, clothing, Traditional, French national costumes, — Costumes from Macon and Bresse

These delicately colored pages near to be scattered far from the lands where the archaic clothes, which served as afar models for them are stored, now faded and smelling of lavender, tin can and must exist the means of acquainting u.s.a. with the soil and of teaching us to know and love it better. I cannot endeavour this without trying to represent, however sketchily, their lineage.

Let us take these pictures in one hand and a bundle of slips in the other. Life hurries on. Well, let it so receive the testimony of a science in the making, in the lack of a science already established. Let information technology follow u.s. into the wings, into the ateliers where ideas are being ceaselessly cut out, browbeaten, forged and clipped in an endless attempt to adjust them to life, which escapes and never stands still. Though nosotros are not however in a position to present a «natural history of French peasant costumes», we have advanced far enough in historical enquiry, thanks to Thou. Camille Enlart, to outline broadly the evolution of the chief manufactures of habiliment of our regional costumes for men and women and their many variations.

Equally I have already remarked, I await a great bargain from the comparing of the traditional and the prehistoric costume. No sooner practice we leave the highways with their fast cars, than life in the country forcibly reminds us of the truthful rhythm of History. When you cease for a minute on the landes of the Limousine the silence provokes a singing in the ears of the town-dweller. The surrounding country seems to exist absolutely deserted salve for the distant figure of a farm-hand guiding a couple of oxen harnessed to a wheelless wooden turn, which resembles in many points the swing-plough of Roman colonists. Occasionally the man speaks or sings to the beasts in harsh or soft tones, which conduct surprisingly far. In the heart of the mural under a chestnut tree stands a dolmen like a budding cathedral rising from the ground. For xx, twenty-five, thirty centuries and possibly longer, the motion picture has been the same; probably the lande had more than grass, was more steppe-like and the gorse was thicker. And what nigh the men? Did they wear skins? Or tunics, which we consider feminine? Were they draped like the Romans or like the present-twenty-four hour period Hindu?

clothing, Traditional, French national costumes, — Breton woman and Breton man.

Everything tends to prove that the Gaulish peasant wore trousers and clogs like the twentieth century French peasant. It is precisely in the male costume that the prehistoric element is more easily establish. In spite of the rather tight-plumbing equipment breeches that court fashions frequently imported for festive and ceremonial dress, many of the male person costumes have either direct trousers or pleated and puffed ones chosen Bragou-braz in Breton. Both go dorsum to prehistoric ages. Have you ever looked at aboriginal monuments of Parthian or other «barbarian» warriors? If you lot take into business relationship the technique of gathering pleats — inevitable to artists who themselves wore draperies, we take here on these reliefs and on the pottery the paradigm of our modern trousers.

M. Marcel Mauss has pointed out that the garments with sleeves and leggings which differ so much from the ample folds of draperies, commemorated for u.s. in Greek statuary, appear to be 1 of the characteristics of subarctic or steppe civilizations. We must deport in mind the waves of migrations: they first off from a vaguely defined domain in Central Asia or Eastern Europe, to descend on ane hand towards France and Spain, and on the other paw, towards the near Eastward, Islamic republic of iran and Republic of india. These men were horsemen wearing trousers and leggings as opposed to the Roman cavalry. The Legions encountered them at the ii ends of the world as it was then known: in the Near Due east it was the Parthian cavalry that Rome never got the better of; in the West it was the cavalry of Vercingetorix, and later on that of the Germanic tribes, which the Emperors hired as auxiliary contingents. The comfort of the dress was so obvious that the curt breeches (femoralia) became more and more than customary in the time of Augustus. They resembled our shorts. Later on, at the time of the Byzantine Empire, Rome adopted the long Gaulish braies or trousers. That is how Alexander Severus came to vesture long white trousers.

Information technology would therefore exist wrong to think that the wearing of trousers was adopted in the country by French nineteenth century fashions. Certainly the old rural costume often included breeches, in faux of the town-dweller of the eighteenth century, — breeches ending in gaiters. But trousers were non totally ignored by the country people. In fact we can assert that modern apparel owes this garment to popular tradition, which is conservative in spite of the caprices of aristocratic fashions. The Francs strengthened this tradition which had been rather compromised by the customs of rich Gauls, who were Roman citizens.

Chessmen dating from the time of Charlemagne clearly bear witness us the dress of the Frankish troops: the horsemen wore leggings over their breeches. It is certainly very difficult to reconstruct the successive types of clothing during the Dark and Eye Ages. Nevertheless information technology would seem that long and straight trousers were chiefly kept as the traditional costume of seafaring men, while the peasants and artisans appear, in the rare pictures where they are represented, to be dressed similar our male child scouts or attired in wider pleated and puffed breeches, not unlike those worn past the Zouaves, or the bragou-braz of the Bretons. And it is amongst the sailors that the French Revolution was to rediscover the classical shape of the long trousers, which were to become the distinctive mark of the « patriots », the «sansculotte»; as opposed to the «aristocrats» in stockings and buckled shoes. Ever since and then the riding boot has given fashion to trousers strapped under the foot which became i of the principal elements of romantic elegance.

Some other immemorial article of the traditional male person costume is surely the blouse. Certain Parisian trades still wearable it — the market gardeners; while the masons, delivery boys, street porters etc. gave it upward quite recently. The great increase of knitwear and leather during the Peachy State of war and every bit a result of sport is one of the primary causes for the disappearance of the brusque and pleated blouse in the metropolis trades and consequently in its actual uses in the state. The blouse is a vestige of an antique costume in that information technology is an outer linen garment. Information technology takes us straight back to Merovingian times. Let u.s.a. consult a reproduction of i of the rare gimmicky documents representing figures. We find that the men are dressed in ii shirts. The one underneath was called subucula* and corresponded to our modernistic shirt; the i on summit was called dalmatic and was simply a blouse with looses sleeves which reached to the knees, whereas our land blouses stop mid-way downwardly the thighs. The Gallo-Romans of the sixth century wore a cloak, with or without a hood over this blouse. The Francs wore the Gaulish woolen sate instead of a cloak, or a heavier fur cloak. The shirt, blouse and cloak were retained indefinitely by shepherds and herdsmen.

The subucula is the lower of the two tunics (Tunica intima).

Smuggler, Grand Bretagne, clothing, traditional, French national costumes, — Smuggler of Grand Bretagne

But let united states render to the long tunics of the 12th and thirteenth centuries of which the Catholic sacerdotal vestments are a memory. Towards the centre of the fourteenth century the male tunics starting time suddenly to abound shorter, barely reaching to the waist. The hose become unusually adult, ascension as high every bit this new brusque tunic. The lite breeches worn by the nobles and bourgeois of the Middle Ages are really an ordinary pair of leggings, plumbing fixtures tightly, and they stop by uniting into a unmarried garment fastened at the waist. The breeches (our shorts) which covered the hose became superfluous and only remained every bit accessories called trunk hose, while the rest of hose became the stocking (has de chausse, from whence has, stocking, a word still used in French).

I have already mentioned the curious insistence on the double tunic, inherited from artifact, in Fundamental European countries. Thanks to the researches of historians we can meet through successive centuries the evolution of aloof dress which influenced the peasant fashions in French republic. Information technology was probably in false of the fashions of the Byzantine Empire, the spiritual and economic supremacy of which extended far to the West, that the double tunics of the men's costumes were diffuse during the early on Middle Ages so as to trail on the ground. It becomes difficult at this fourth dimension to distinguish the wearing apparel of the ii sexes. The elongated silhouettes which adorn the portals of the Cathedral of Chartres and many other Romanesque churches present a singular appearance not different the pipes of an organ. It was the linen shirt (chainse) covered by the long narrow tunic (bliaud). The people at that time wore either relatively short knee length blouses or tunics; which were sometimes tucked up or gathered under belts. This tucking up of the hems, which must have been rather uncomfortable, persisted among the habits of the land people. In the fifteenth century the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke Jean de Berri shows united states of america mowers and haymakers attired in this fashion. During the eighteenth century this tucking up of women's skirts was very current: that was how (more than by the utilize of rush bustles or padding) the countrywomen imitated the «paniers» of aristocratic gowns. The bad land of land roads up to the nineteenth century obliged the peasant women to tuck up their skirts almost ever.

Traditional French Headdresses from La Rochelle, La Vendee, Poitou — Headdresses from La Rochelle, La Vendee, Poitou

From the thirteenth century, and very clearly in the fourteenth, clothes became more complicated and articles of wear announced which we find in the traditional costumes every bit well as in modern dress. Each of the two tunics is once more doubled: and we observe the shirt is covered by a doublet, the ancestor of our waistcoat. At the aforementioned time the outer apparel (the bliaud, the aboriginal dalmatic) is divided into coat and sur-coat, the ancestors of our jacket and overcoat respectively. In the fourteenth century most of these articles of clothing were close-fitting, which distinguishes them from the dress of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Therefore information technology is during the fourteenth century that the close-fitting elements of traditional costume originated (we must non forget that nothing remains of the loose tunics merely the blouse or the cape). And here it is that the practice of padding, which we find in and then many regional feminine costumes, starts. During the Center Ages knitwear was unknown (knitted hose began to be mentioned in the fifteenth century). The utilise of knitwear for underclothes is quite modernistic. Lacking jerseys, our ancestors used padded linings between 2 layers of quilted linen. This technique was very important in determining the silhouette: padding allows for artful deformation, and helps to find a mode of « line ».

We accept already recalled the « paniers » of the dresses during the Sometime Regime. It was only the end of a long tradition, the first excesses having appeared in the fourteenth century, particularly at the court of Isabeau of Bavaria. At that time women affected a waddle. Even their hair was padded, and rose in fabulous hennins: the high coifs of Normandy and Saintonge have kept the retentivity alive. As to the dresses, they became corsets, that is to say short, slashed in the bodices, and laced. During the winter the corset was lined with fur. Information technology introduced in the land the wearing of close fitting dresses in such heavy fabric, that they supported the torso without whalebones. And so it is that the torso of woman since the fourteenth century upwards to the traditional costumes of our regions, has been stiffly trussed. In the case of the Savoyard costume the local aesthetic demands a square trunk « the clock case ».

Many of import changes cartel from this menstruum. The neckerchief was one of the most charming features of eigteenth century fashions and some of our regional bodices seem to take imitated this fashion of Marie-Antoinette's court: certainly information technology helped enormously to popularize the shawl, but the scarf had existed since the fourteenth century; Enlart explains that it had originally been a traveling-bag, but had get a strip of material worn over both shoulders or beyond 1 (Le Costume, Paris, Picard, 1916, p. 94.).

Therefore, nosotros cannot exaggerate the important influence that aristocratic fashions in the fourteenth century exercised on the ulterior development of traditional dress. M. Marcel Mauss often stresses the deep impression fabricated by the coming of Isabeau of Bavaria and her court; for the first time a gustation for luxury was implanted in French mediaeval club.
The peasants came in to this heritage during the following centuries and made just few subsequent changes in their dress until the nineteenth century, when the invasion of readymade clothes reached even French villages. When feminine wearing apparel was divided into bodice (caraco) and skirt and sure masculine festive clothes included the culotte à la Français and the iii-cornered chapeau, the chief variations of the traditional costume since the Hundred Years' State of war had taken place. The residuum is a question of local evolution, of conservatism or imitation peculiar to certain regions, villages or even parishes.

We take still to consider the influence of the romantic age on this series of evolutions. But here the written report of costume was impeded by a controversy on quite another bailiwick. Students of folk-lore began by studying legends, tales and superstitious beliefs instead of popular life. Eminent nineteenth century sociologists applied themselves to notice links between these traditions and the infidel religions of antiquity. The aroma was hot, and the chase was successful. Perhaps too successful. There was a time when every thing, from the use of the umbrella to the growing of pumpkins, was explained by solar myths; so in folk-lore everything was due to pagan cults. The reaction was inevitable.
At that place are admirable souls who inform you that Funfair, which is dying out in our villages was perhaps imported from Italy through Nice during the Second Empire. The aforementioned story holds for clothes. We are told that the authors of romantic lithographs might very well accept not simply invented their then-chosen documents but even created local fashions by their fantastic pictures. Briefly the scientists and the artists of a hundred or hundred and thirty years ago were unduly interested in « local color », and added information technology where there had been little before. Carried away past their want to admire the picturesque, they may even have suggested to local tailors and embroiderers how to enhance their models and have furnished them with designs for the embroidering of some of the Breton costumes.

I admit that I am not convinced, or rather that I believe such influences had always existed without really achieving the effect attributed to them in the circumstances. I do not conclude from the fact that some of the present mean solar day Breton pottery is quite unlike that of seventy-five years ago, that the romantic artists must have influenced Breton dress fashions during the past century. We know that the contemporary pottery comes from important factories founded at the end of the nineteenth century. It had piddling in common with the older crafts, though it has its own merits. And it cannot be compared to the conditions in which the local tailor worked and oft still works, when he has not been ousted by the competition of mass production suits.

To conclude, we find that in the majority of cases our outset documents concerning the dress of this or that region become back to the romantic historic period, and that during the preceding centuries painters, engravers, sculptors or draughtsmen represented the common people clothed in a compatible of poverty, if not in truculent rags. From this very true statement we come to the atypical conclusion that peasant apparel up to the romantic historic period was very alike everywhere, and varied only slightly from century to century, reflecting the distant fashions of court. By creating the Role of Folk-lore Documentation at the Palais Chaillot, and past enriching it daily, 1000. Rivière methodically collects all the material bearing upon this question. Is information technology too soon to venture an opinion? I do non think then. Already serious local enquiries, of which M. Gabriel Jeanton has furnished an case, have helped to discover the being of very special regional fashions long earlier the romantic catamenia.
The relative uniformity of popular dress in documents earlier than the nineteenth century just shows u.s. what has ofttimes been noted in other artistic spheres: from the seventeenth century onwards artists are not really interested in the people except on rare occasions.
Those amid them who continued the admirable tradition of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and were not guided past convention, those « painters of reality » who are being patiently discovered by M. Rene Huyghe, accept about all, with the exception of lye Nain, been forgotten. How many canvases of the eighteenth century represent stereotyped cottages, which give united states at the about an idea of the creative person's origin or of the office of France that he knew best! Why is it that nosotros have no conventional farmers, tradespeople, peasants? Were they not at least part of the background?

I deemed it necessary to stop at these arguments for we had already collected bit by bit a certain amount of information regarding the great age of traditional dress. It is e'er worth while to submit a bona fide objector to an objective examination. What we finally deduce from the contemporary tendency to « rejuvenate » the traditional costume is the general fact that in the nineteenth century, which was to witness their most complete disappearance, the different regional costumes tended to vary and to alter more chop-chop. It was like a dying person's fever. This is quite comprehensible and I am willing to concede this point to the partisans of the romantic origin of our regional fashions, though I exercise not explain it in the same mode. I cannot suppose that the crusade of this rapid evolution of our peasant fashions was due to whatsoever propaganda of the intellectuals. I simply consider that the nineteenth century was the age which metalled country roads, built railways and somewhen produced the motor-car. Individual contact between countrymen and the big centres increased and so much as to go a mass phenomena, men and goods travelled more easily. And the small heart of civilisation which harbored the local tailor and his clients now received more and more manufactured articles from outside : another matter to upset the tailor's trade is the style-plate, which is beginning to discover its fashion from town to town, and before long from civic to civic. And it will non be long before fashion magazines penetrate equally far equally our villages. The tailor's trade declines as a result, earlier dying out completely.

But these controversies would perhaps not arise if anyone knew more nigh the tailor'south singular trade: it is time to evoke it if we desire to surround our pictures of peasant costumes with their picturesque social background.

Few people know that there used to be such disgraceful trades, that only the feeble, the ill or the puny could follow them. In Africa it is frequently the blacksmith who loses degree. In France it used to be the tailors and the rope-makers. An excellent chronicler of life in Brittany a hundred and xxx years agone, O. Perrin, records the helotism of these artisans in Armorican * society and tells us that « the tailor endeavors past every ways to achieve a dissimilar position to that which he is entitled to by his profession. The contempt with which he is treated by our peasant nobility, e. m. the laborer, no doubt dates from the far-off times when industry, now a reigning queen, or any other sedentary occupation was considered an infamy. At that time only those who could not piece of work in the fields or fight followed such an occupation. Therefore tailors were generally poor creatures disgraced by Nature, hunchbacks, i-eyed, lame, all the misshapen and incomplete male person population of the villages. It was natural that their concrete inferiority and their feminine trades placed them on the lowest rung of the social calibration in the crude fighting days; only the rope-makers, cacoux, that other caste of pariahs, were below them ». (Galerie bretonne, 2nd edition, Paris, 1838, vol. 3, pp. 26-27.)

Aremorica (also Armorica, from Celtic are mori, "in front of the body of water") was a geographic name for the north-western coast of today'southward France between the rivers Sequana (Seine) and Liger (Loire), today's landscapes Normandy and Brittany.

It is possible that Perrin, who published his piece of work in 1808, rather exaggerated the lot of the unfortunate tailor. Popular tales stand for this artisan as a jolly little fellow, shrewd and industrious, like most dwarfs, all the more amusing because they are not of import. No sooner was the wool spun, and the cloth woven by the village weaver, than the tailor was expected ; he always settled down in the farmhouse for several weeks to enable him to clothe the whole family. Though he was constantly on the motility he rarely travelled far. He had his own circle of clients and never saw as much of the world as the stone-cutter or the itinerant tinker. Such was the master of local elegance, and we must try to imagine him in social club to sympathize how so many strange costumes evolved. He conscientiously followed the old rules of his merchandise which he had been taught, allowing himself an occasional innovation: it was his fashion of doing his best. His clients, like himself were swayed by ii desires with regard to dress- fashions; 1 was to suit to costume for the honor and prestige of their petty customs in competition with neighboring villages, and the other to imitate after a fashion the marvellous attire worn by the conservative or the nobility, who sometimes visited their lands between two sojourns at courtroom. Poor, touching, fearsome imitations, artless and naive, for the peasant had no correct to clothing the dress of the great.
The originality of folk-lore is institute in just this mingling or rather in this ceaseless and candid juxtaposition. With his astonishing hereditary ability the local tailor created new fashions with bits and pieces naively added to his stock of regional tradition.

The portrait of the tailor, who is rapidly becoming a legendary figure would be incomplete if we did not mention the social significance of his functions in the heart of these small communities. In that location has never been one blazon of traditional costume but in the aforementioned hamlet at a given time: these costumes take ever varied, not simply according to, sexual practice but likewise according to age and wealth, which is the real basis of social condition amidst the peasantry.

Charles-Brun tells united states the post-obit about feminine dress in the valleys of the Pyrenees: « The colors or details of feminine costume in the valley of the Ossau are meaning. The widow is always dressed in black. Married women between the ages of twenty-v and thirty-eight wear a black hood or cap. The immature daughter has a white pinafore, the immature married woman a blackness 1. An heiress wears the aforementioned blood-red brim as other girls, but adds a broad green silk ribbon »(ane). Such peculiarities of clothes have been described for other regions. They would appear everywhere if the studies of traditional costume had been carefully conducted before the decadence of these costumes. In Bresse, and especially in the mannerly borough of Romenay, where the new Museum of Folk-lore obtained one of the prizes at the International Exhibition of 1937, young girls of marriageable age wear lace bonnets with more or less lace frills, according to the amount of their dowry (2) and a ruddy ribbon under their chin to distinguish them from the ordinary girls.

And so information technology was that the tailor was intimately continued with hamlet life; he created for each person what was in reality the emblem or living advertising of that person'southward real condition. Information technology is therefore inappreciably surprising that the tailor was traditionally called equally go between during betrothals? Perrin gives usa a humorous clarification of him (3), equally well as of the extraordinary luxury of the iii costumes which the bride had to wear successively.
This terminal trait helps us to identify the man at a fourth dimension when the traditional costume was role of the family unit wealth. A part of the reserve was worn on one'south back in the form of precious metal. The tailor deposited certain family possessions in embroideries and gilded lace; he invested them in ornaments much as a solicitor invests money in bonds.

Referring to the costumes of Central Europe nosotros take noted the ancient role of this marvelous use of ornament. I am inclined to believe that the accumulation of metal ornaments is not a contempo phenomena, but rather the opposite. The increase of trumpery finery during the nineteenth century was no novelty, just expressed primitive desires; it occurred whenever highly colored industrial materials arrived on the local market. The adopting of certain colors in the traditional costume remains a sign of archaism even if it merely concerns ordinary aniline dyes.

And at present we must justify our choice from amongst the regional costumes. Modernistic taste inclines towards old predilections. The need to evoke gay images and vivid colours turns us towards the most archaistic parts of the country. From Brittany to Alsace, and to the Basque land we take concentrated chiefly upon the mountainous regions and the coast where the oldest folk-lore is to be found. Several plates, oftentimes reproduced from older models, furnish terms of comparison with other regions, where interchanges since the preceding centuries were so frequent, and where the traditional costume varies but little from the town fashions of sometime.

Foreign readers to whom the contemporary attribute of France is unfamiliar, must not think that a journey across our land would put them in the presence of traditional costumes. Some day, perhaps, the girls from our provinces will understand how much of their charm they lose in adopting the banal uniformity of the « latest thing ». Charles-Brun, the campaigner of triumphant regionalism may count on the trump card which is feminine vanity. The mean solar day that our country girls will make up their minds to sew their own festival apparel their ingenuity volition exist comparable to that which inspired the late hamlet tailor and that day the regional costume will have regained its place in the center of popular art and living folk-lore.

André Varagnac (1894-1983)

(1) Costumes des provinces françaises, Paris, Ducher, due north. d., vol. I, p. 38.
(2) Encounter Gabriel Jeanton: Costumes bressans et mâconnais. Tournus, Renaudier, 1937, p. 31
(three) Ibid. p. 25 ff. The tailor as ambassador.

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