Dresses, trousers, shirts, vests, and head pieces, worn for work differed from those worn for festive occasions and they differed from region to region. Dirndl dresses use synthetic and plastic products. Dirndl dresses use machine embroidery and laces. Dirndl dresses make no such distinction. Native dress uses ornamental trim very carefully, concentrating instead, on quality of workmanship.
Dirndl dresses use showy ornamentation in profusion with quality of workmanship a secondary concern.
The heyday of traditional dress was around the beginning of the 19th century. Instead peddlers hawked cheap, factory-made fabrics, which may not have looked as great, but were inexpensive. Fashion influences altered the typical characteristics of native dress until they disappeared altogether. This was a gradual development, in some places and regions happening faster than in others. Where tradition remained important, especially in parts of Bavaria and Austria, the Black Forest, Lower Saxony, Friesland, Schleswig, the Harz Mountains, Hesse and Lusatia, people continued to wear their traditional dress for a long time.