The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-12-08
NATIONAL COSTUME IN NORWAY

A writer in London Queen, sketchins
national costume in Norway, has some
instructive things to say: To stay at that
very tourist center. Odde, over Sunday
is to give oneself an opportunity OF see
ing the wonderful whita goffered caps
worn by the elderly women coming into
the village to church. These women, if
asked, would not know whence they got
their pattern, which is more like Henry
V headdress than anything ever seen out
of effigy or antique hooks upon dress.
The typical costume of the district for
unmarried girls is cloth skirt. a chemi-
sette with very full sleeves of white lawn
with cuffs of the beautifully pierced
EN- broiderv they make themselves, a
sleeveless Eton coat with vest of brilliant
red CLOTH EN- broidered all over with white
beads and woods, and large white apron
from the waist downward with broad lace
insertion. Curious silver studs are worn
AT the throat, and the hair is arranged
in two plaits tied with ribbons. The
sole hobby of the very beautiful women
of the Lofoten Islands is white ostrich
feathers. Ii tJey posses these in more or
less numbers for the adornment of their
hats, they are absolutely content.
The rest of their dress is just as Eng
lish-that is to say, as up to date--as cir.
Gums tances can possibly make it. A
little shop window in kabelvaag display
ed the most recherche millinery, which
was as disar pointing and amusing to be-
hold MS a tailor's shop in Bodo, main
land arctic circle port, which exhibited
beautiful boaru, displaying an immaculate
frock- coated man-about-town. wearing
the conventional silk hat of polite exist
ence. Perhaps in the wilder parts of the
island a short -skirted costume, with a
CURIOUS stomacher and hat, may be met.
This | certainly saw once, but 1t was an
excellent exception to the rule.
Drive through the Soghe district in
Western Norway. and you shall come
across two caps that Will delight you, II
you look out for th.m on the heads OF the
wording men and women in the fields.
These caps are perfect copies of Anglo
Saxon ones indeed, they should not be
called Anglo-Saxon, because one is pre-
cisely the ancient scarlet Phrygian
shape, which seems to have permeated the
day is still worn in England by brewers
draymen. The most elderly men seem
to like it in the Sogna district, perhaps
because they can pull it well down over
their ears, where 1t keeps on firmly in
the highest winds. They " ear it qnite as
an undresss head covering. as its weather.
beaten look testifies, and probably would
not appear at church in it upon any con-
sideration. Nevertheless, IT and the very
ugly and unbecoming skull cap worn by
the women under like conditions and
with no pretense of beauty about it are
examples of really antique fashlon-true
relics of national costume.
We hear great deal OF the divided
skirt, and are led to believe that Mrs.
Bloomer ana Lady Harberton have in
sort of q way, If not invented, at least
concocted. the costumes which embody
the prnclple of trousers for women. but
dow.i in the Saetersdal the costume of the
Il ictr int %. ioi nd yIy,x
n!shed divided skirt. IL is made in the
form of an underskrt aud an overskirt,
and is very vide. 1t reaches only to just
below the knees. where it meets pair
of thickly hosened legs upon which
again the pointed-toed shoe is seen. l
have never been in this district of Nor
way, and go | cannot say whether this
remarka BILE skirt and the equally remark
able Skull cap bonnet that accompanies it
is the dress of ordinary life, but my ex
perience leads me to suppose that it is a
show costume merely. Inter-
Ocean,