Tracht im Blick

Traditional costume has been in the spotlight for over 200 years. While it was initially painter classes who kept an eye on what "the people" wore, the Bavarian royal family soon took up the topic. The Oktoberfest, royal weddings and measures to preserve traditional costume did their bit to anchor it in the public consciousness in the 19th century. Towards the end of the century, the first traditional costume clubs appeared, giving the "idea of traditional costume" a quantitative boost. Soon, in the spirit of regional thinking, there was also increasing talk of an "Upper Palatinate" traditional costume, which was massively promoted publicly, especially in the second half of the 20th century, to strengthen an "Upper Palatinate identity". In recent decades, the clothing industry has discovered the topic, flooding the market with cheap goods and apparently catering to the need to dress "Bavarian". Now the Upper Palatinate is unpacking this exciting topic: from the very concrete (underwear, headgear) to the history, research and care of traditional costume. This richly illustrated volume shows that it is worth investigating the phenomenon of traditional costume in the Upper Palatinate and offers many ways of getting to grips with the topic.