Traditional dress, Hardanger, Norway

Hardanger, Norway

Axel Eliassons Konstforlag Stockholm No 5124
(printed in Stockholm)

postmarked in 1906 with a one cent Benjamin Franklin stamp to this address:

Mrs. Mary Jarns
Quaker Street
N.Y.
(no house number or city)

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The Hardanger bunad is the most famous of all the Norwegian folk costumes. In the romantic era of the last part of the 19th century, it became the national costume, and it was copied all over the country, although usually simplified. There is also a difference of a married woman and a young girls bunad. The woman wear a headdress and a silver belt, and they look more dressed up than the young girls.


interesting fact about the apron:

The oldest skirts were either open at the front and closed with hooks all the way down or only with a hook at the waist, leaving a long opening bellow. The aprons main function was to hide the opening . The opening down the skirt was not considered "nice". An unmarried girl who had a child would have "lost her apron".