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Hip hip hooray! May 17th celebrations and folk costumes

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Category: Ramblings | Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 8:04 pm

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We have celebrated today, and the weather has been nearly perfect. The wind was a bit too hard, the temps just a little too low, but at least it wasn't raining. Let's start with the parade, shall we?

Lots of people milling about, it looks a bit disorganized, but looks can be deceptive:





And they're off:







The drill girls (we call'em that, I don't know the proper English words for them):



The school brass band:



And now the costumes, called "bunad". We've got a wide variety of them. Every island, valley, side valley, village and town have their own varieties. Mine is from my father's birth place. It's woven wool, no embroidery. I've got two silver brooches in front, and wear a head dress and jacket when outdoors:





These are from this region. The embroidery in front of the skirt is an apron. I asked the lady to pose for the stewbies, and as you can see she thought it a fun thing to do:



The woolen fabric can be either black or blue. The headdress is embroidered in black, and is carried by a married woman. Girls wear woolen embroidered bonnets, young unmarried women wear head dresses with colourful embroidery, and red stockings, to make them easy to spot for the bachelors I guess:



Detail of the back:



The men also wear costumes from their home place:





This is voted the most beautiful national costume in all of Norway, it comes from Hardanger. The front is pearl embroidery, and the silver is guilded. The apron is linen and done in a technique called Hardanger embroidery. It takes forever to do:



Some costumes use shawls instead of jackets or capes:





Some details from costumes I spotted on our walk. This belt is done in very small cross stitch:



This embroidery belongs to a costume from around the Lillehammer area:



I could have photographed and shown lots more, but I was a bit busy waving the flag, cheering, shouting and singing. Here's a link showing more folk costumes.


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Frank wrote on Sat May 17, 2008 8:31 pm:

Looks very traditional and organised Droopy. And the detail of the embroidery is highly impressive. Glad you had a good time and thanks for taking the time to post photos of the event.

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eileen wrote on Sat May 17, 2008 10:16 pm:

Oh I do love to see costumes like this Droopy. The amount of detailed work that goes into their making is amazing. Thank you so much for taking those photographs for us. What a wonderful day out it seems to have been for one and all.

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Sjoerd wrote on Sun May 18, 2008 12:05 am:

Really beautiful. I am so pleased that you took the time to take these pictures for us. The costumes are quite nice to see and so beautifully decorated.
You know Droopy--some of those embroidered floral designs on the waist coats and shawls look like the Rosmåling designs on painted furniture.
You looked fine in your costume and seemed to be in a festive mood.
What is the name of the day's occasion? This is something that the nation oes every year, right?

Well, thanks again for aquainting us with your customs and showing the national costumes.
BTW...I know how that goes with each village, city, etc having it's own costume, it's the same here.

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toni wrote on Sun May 18, 2008 12:49 am:

Wow, Droopy, what beautiful costumes. The detail and length of time it took to make them is just amazing.

You look very pretty in your costume. Thanks so much for the pictures. I'm glad the lady who posed for you was such a good sport, her costume is lovely too.

The girls leading the band...the first 4 are called Cheer Leaders here and the other group is the drill team. I was on the Drill Team in my high school years, I could do the splits and high kick durn near straight up...when I was much skinnier and more limber than I am now. :)

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Biita wrote on Sun May 18, 2008 5:32 am:

Looks like all of you had a great time. I know we did! Great Pics, and you look beautiful in your bunad. Very nice. What area is your dad from?

All I know is I'm still stuffed after yesterdays feasting,,lol.

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Droopy wrote on Sun May 18, 2008 7:36 am:

Thank you all for nice comments. Sjoerd, well spotted! Rosemaling is time consuming enough, but imagine trying to embroider it! Biita, he was born far north in Gudbrandsdalen.

The costume designs and accessories are strictly regulated, you can't mix and pick a piece here and a piece there. They're adding more designs as they find them, and even creating new ones that are area neutral, to be worn by people who would like a bunad but either has no connection or just don't like the regional one. *lol*

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kaseylib wrote on Sun May 18, 2008 1:01 pm:

Looks like a great celebration and wonderful handiwork on all costumes. Thanks for taking us along. What is the name and/or significance of the holiday you celebrate on May 17th?

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Droopy wrote on Sun May 18, 2008 5:35 pm:

Thanks, kaseylib. It's our Constitution Day, or national day, and we just call it "May 17th" *lol*. I've described it in my previous blog entry, called "The May 17th celebrations - Constitution Day".

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tschnath wrote on Tue May 20, 2008 2:25 am:

The detail on some of those costumes is amazing. You look very nice in yours Droopy. It's interesting to learn about the diffent things that go on. Thanks for sharing the history and pics with us.

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