The history of the Second World War also includes tales about garments and accessories: from clothes made from parachute silk to luminous buttons and flowers designed to make oneself more visible to other pedestrians and motorists during a blackout, or the "siren suit", an outfit you could pull in one go in case you had to run to the air-raid shelter in a hurry.
One country also developed a garment that came to symbolize the end of the conflict: in the Netherlands women celebrated peace with a homemade "liberation skirt", a garment conceived by Dutch feminist Mies Boissevain-van Lennep (1896-1965).
Born in Amsterdam, during World War II, Boissevain-van Lennep and her family housed and protected Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Their house eventually became a centre of resistance and, in August 1943, Mies and all three of her sons were arrested by the Gestapo. Two of her sons were executed, while Mies and her remaining son Frans were imprisoned in the Herzogenbusch concentration camp in Vught, where Mies worked in the hospital as a nurse.
Mies survived internment at Herzogenbusch and later was sent at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was nearly sent to the gas chamber several times. When the Ravensbrück camp was liberated at the end of April 1945, she was evacuated by the Red Cross to Sweden and returned to the Netherlands a few months later. To commemorate the postwar rebuilding of the Netherlands, Mies came up with the idea for a garment she called the national liberation skirt ("nationale feestrok", a "feestrok" is a celebration or party skirt or "bevrijdingsrok", that is "liberation skirt").
The skirt was inspired by a tie Mies received while she was in prison, made with small patches, pieces of fabrics from coats and other clothing belonging to relatives and friends. Mies told her fellow prisoners the story about every piece of cloth to give them strength and build solidarity.
The "liberation skirts" had to be made following specific rules: old but colourful patches had to be sewn onto an older skirt so that the original fabric disappeared. The hem had to feature plain triangles and prominently embroidered on the front the date "May 5, 1945".
While there was a shortage of textiles in the post-war era, there was no shortage of old items of clothing and the women who made these skirts integrated in them fabrics taken from clothes that were important for them, including engagement dresses and wedding gowns or bits and pieces of their children's clothes. Important dates were embroidered on the patches, so that some of the skirts, featured intricate decorative motifs that engaged the sense of touch. The skirts were therefore conceived as wearable records from the life of the wearer.
The skirts were to be worn on national holidays as well as important private parties: in September 1948, in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the reign of Queen Wilhelmina, hundreds of women wore their commemorative skirts for a parade in Amsterdam and across the parliament courtyard in The Hague.
A liberation skirt only became a "National commemorative skirt" if it was officially entered in the "skirts register". A round stamp that read "Nationale Feestrok" (National Celebration Skirt), "Saamgevoegd op één ondergrond" (Joined together on one background) and in the middle NI, the abbreviation of National Institute (and the year at the bottom) would then be applied on the skirt. After registration, the owner received a postcard with the registration number that was then embroidered on the skirt. In the end, around 4,000 skirts were registered.
The skirts became symbols of unity, collective mourning and women's emancipation. The garments also had a therapeutic and architectural value: women could process their own war experiences while making the designs and the skirts represented metaphors for the reconstruction and renewal of the Netherlands.
The commemorative skirt found a place in the collective memory of Dutch society through the work of memory institutions and researchers and now, with the Russian invasion continuining in Ukraine, you wonder if when the war is over (hopefully as soon as possible) there will be a garment that will be used as a symbol of liberation and peace in Ukraine.
In the meantime, we can all get inspired by the original liberation skirts (patchwork skirts are actually trendy at the moment View this photo, so you may try and come up with your own patchwork design): for Liberation Day 2022, the Fries Verzetsmuseum (Frisian Resistance Museum) in Leeuwarden is organizing an exhibition dedicated to these garments. The event will be open to the public free of charge from May at the museum and online as well on a dedicated site and on social media.
Journalist Lieke van den Krommenacker and photographer Marleen Annema will travel through Friesland in the next weeks to photograph the original wearers or their (grand)children with the skirts and to record the liberation stories. People who still own a liberation skirt can get in touch with the museum and recount the story of their skirt using the form at this link or can contact the museum via email at [email protected]
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