Polish Folk Costume series: Kaszubian costume

This is the second in my series, based on the book by Elzbieta Piskorz- Branekova   Folk Costumes.

The region we are talking about is here - circled in hot pink.

According to an article on Wikipedia, there are a total of about 200,000-500,000  "Kashubs" living in Poland nowadays. The difference in numbers seems to depend on how the question is asked.  

photo taken from the book Poland Folk Costumes referenced elsewhere in this article.

Even  now you can go to this area of Poland and they have a different dialect.  I am told it is whole different language and is taught in the schools.  The language is heavily influenced by both German and Polish. We've traveled around a bit in this area, and we noticed some language differences on signs. We were on our way to the Baltic Sea, however, and didn't have time to get out and wander around the area.

Obviously people nowadays don't really wear this type of clothing - except for special holidays and festivals.  But this is what their costumes looked like.

They haven't been commonly worn since the first half of the 19th century - (so they quit being worn before the Civil War in the US)

photo taken from the book referenced above.

Here's an excerpt taken from the book:

“The Kashubian men’s costume consisted of the following parts: a black hat, a shirt of a square or rectangular piece cut with gusstes (sic), a vest or a jacket, a sukmana coat of dark, often homespun cloth, trousers of suede and boots. It was completed with a silk scarf tied around the neck, usually green.”

— "Folk Costumes", Elzbieta Piskorz-Branekova, p. 9

Another excerpt about the women's outfit.

“The basic elements of women’s costume were a bonnet with its crown embroidered with gold or silver thread in Renaissance and Baroque motifs and girdled with a silk scarf, a shirt of the same cut as men’s one, bodice or jacket of dark velvet, two skirts (top and bottom), an apron and booots (sic). The costume was usually completed with amber necklaces.””

— "Folk Costumes" by Elzbieta Piskorz-Branekova, p. 9

This particular costume had less written about it than most others.  And this is definitely referring to an old Kaszubian costume - not a modernized version of it.  I found several articles that seem to show a completely different outfit. 

But like so many things are in the past, maybe we will never really know. The article mentioned that most of the information was gleaned through very old drawings and writings.

But if you happen to need something for your CURRENT project, be sure to check out the goodies my sis has for you over in the store!

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