• Swiss Emigration to the USA
• Swiss Folk Art
• Swiss Holidays
• Swiss Customs
  • Jass
  • Yodelling
  • Schwingen (Alpine Wrestling)
  • Hornussen (Baseball Swiss-style)
  • Flag Tossing
  • Alphorn Competitions
  • Stone-throwing Competition
  • National Costumes
• Swiss Recipes
• Ressources

Canton Nidwalden (NW) Sunday costume Women's costume is decorated with embroideries of garden flowers, while the embroidery on men's smocks shows alpine flowers. The red handkerchief peeping out of the man's left trouser pocket is an integral part of the costume, but only unmarried men let it show. The lower part of the sleeve, from elbow to wrist, is made of black silk Picture: swissworld.org

Near the end of the 18th century a new interest in the Alps and the pastoral lifestyles and cultures of the people living on them led to the development of tourism in Switzerland. Curious travellers wanted to take back cheap landscape paintings as souvenirs and with that grew a blooming business in hand-coloured engravings done in the workshops of such minor Bernese artists as Sigmund Freudenberger, Johann Ludwig Aberli und Gabriel Lory who enhanced these landscapes with figures in traditional costumes.

To heighten the decorative effect of his engravings, Freudenberger did not portray the costumes as they really were – plain, undyed linen and wool. Instead he brightened them up by adding colours to his representations.
For his part, Lory enlarged the traditional lace bonnets portrayed in his work so that they became spectacular headwear. In contrast to these artistic adjustments, old photographs show that the costumes worn by women at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century were generally the style of the times.

In 1914, the Bernese association devoted to the protection of regional traditions published a pamphlet criticising what it described as the nonsense surrounding the styles in national costumes. In the 1920s, the artistic committee of the Swiss Association called on artists throughout the country to portray people in traditional costumes. Of the drawings submitted, 48 were reproduced in colour and printed as postcards on the occasion of a National day for Traditional Costumes (Trachtentag) in 1925. A jury of the Swiss Association for the Protection of Traditional Costumes and Folk Music judged the costumes and published its report in a brochure.

The Bernese artist and heraldist Rudolf Münger copied figures from ancient chronicles and from drawings of the Swiss masters and in this way acquired considerable expertise in the characteristics of traditional costumes. On the basis of early drawings, national costumes were recreated in the 1920s. Since that time, the Swiss Association for Traditional Costumes has set the standards for these costumes and their quality. In local costume groups, members sing traditional songs, rehearse traditional and newly choreographed folk dances and generally maintain tradition.

The Federal Traditional Costume Festival takes place every three years, the highlight of which is a magnificent procession with costumes from every part of Switzerland.