Eton crop, or traditional headwear?
Short bobbed haircuts, figure-hugging skirts, flat shoes – the new fashions of the 1920s were wildly popular, but they also had their avowed opponents. Seeking a return to the values of the past, these groups set about re-establishing Switzerland’s long-dormant customs of traditional dress.
Michael van Orsouw
Michael van Orsouw has a PhD in history and is a performance poet and author. He regularly publishes historical books.
Website: geschichte-texte.ch
The reason for this folkloric mass gathering was the founding of the ‘Schweizer Trachten- und Volkslieder-Vereinigung’, the Swiss traditional dress and folk song association, in Lucerne on 6 June 1926. The new association aimed to preserve the nation’s customs of cultural attire and encourage Swiss women to wear their traditional local garb, referred to as the Kleid der Heimat, with pride. The Baselland contingent suggested that the new association take a stand ‘against fads such as the Eton crop’ and against ‘every foreign infiltration into the artistic sphere, especially in the areas of music and singing’; war was to be waged particularly on the ‘foxtrot, shimmy, tempo, the trashy songs in operettas, etc.’ The proposal was met with thunderous applause from the assembled women.
New role, new fashion
Nowhere was the new model of the role of women in business, politics and family so quickly and consistently adopted as in fashion. Fashion houses and tailors brought in new cuts, shapes and articles of clothing that were in step with the new times. Women now showed their legs, which they used to stand firmly on their own two feet. They had strong arms with which they could drive their own cars. They had clever minds and short hairstyles, because that was what they wanted.
Short hair and lipstick
Something of the sparkle and glamour that was strutting the catwalks in fashion capitals like Paris and Milan found its way into the wider world, including Switzerland. The ‘new women’ stepped out with short hair, smaller busts, slim hips and long legs, sometimes wearing trousers, flat shoes, cigarette in hand, and seated behind the wheel of a car. When make-up, lipstick and nail polish made the jump across the Atlantic, Switzerland’s strait-laced conservatives finally hit the roof. The new-fangled powders and cosmetics were disparagingly referred to as ‘Müüli- und Nägelisüüch’.
Scathing criticism and the anti-fashion movement
The traditional costumes movement was in marked contrast to the new forms of fashion. These were seen as the elemental source, the embodiment of the homeland – a kind of anti-fashion to counter the onslaught of the prevailing trends. But the traditional costumes weren’t actually as old as they were made out to be. By the late 19th century, traditional costume had largely been consigned to oblivion in Switzerland!
In a way, World War I launched the comeback. In 1916 a group of Vaud women got together in Sauvabelin, determined to counteract the external pressures of the war by using traditional costumes to maintain Switzerland’s unique national character. Something important happened: for the first time, tailoring instructions for traditional dress types and rules for the correct wearing of traditional costumes were issued.
Traditional costumes also popular in the city
Then, as mentioned, the Swiss traditional dress and folk song association was founded in 1926 – and rather tellingly, not in the countryside, but in the urban city of Lucerne. From then on, the new mingled with the old; neither ousted the other. Instead, both past and present coexisted in Switzerland. Despite the popularity of the Eton crop, many new folk groups wearing traditional dress were still being formed at the end of the 1920s. Anti-fashion established itself alongside fashion: The Kleid der Heimat was reborn.
