Traditional Folk Costume for those from Warsaw

Can anyone tell me what the folk costume for men and women from Warsaw looks like? I've never seen a photograph of it, and as my father was from Warsaw, I'd really love to know! I didn't get the chance to know my father that well, but the memories I have of him are very dear to me, and anything that makes me feel closer to him is really important to me.

I'd love to visit Warsaw, and today I was looking at Folk Costumes in Poland, but I can't seem to find what the costume looks like for those from Warsaw.

Does anyone know where I could find a photo of it?

Thanks so much for any help anyone can give.

Bella :)

Typical exactly for Warsaw - such one rateher doesn't exist. Warsaw is a city.

There is Wilanów costume, typical for the southern outskirts of Warsaw:
warszawa.gazeta.pl/warszawa/1,34889,10678751,Warszawiacy_maja_wlasny_stroj_ludowy__Z_Wilanowa.html
(when you open it, copy the content to a text file, because you can open this article for a limited number of times for a month, then you have to pay).

Examples:
google.nl/search?q=str%C3%B3j+wilanowski&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dcy6VL-wDsrX7QaBhoDwDA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=743

Wilanów is a former village, now a district of Warsaw, with a beautiful palace, sometimes referred to as the Polish Versailles.

Warsaw itself is a bit too urban and has been for a long time, however traditionally Mazowsze (the region Warsaw is in) had their own style - very similar to Kurpie a little to the north. This is a photo from a folk museum near Warsaw.

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Thank you two both so much!!!

If we talk about Mazovia, it's hard not to mention the very colorful and known in Poland £owicz costumes:
google.nl/search?q=str%C3%B3j+%C5%82owicki&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3PK6VOLjBc3paNnugJAP&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=743

£owicz region is also a part of Mazovia, although it lies about 100 km west to Warsaw.

The logo of the "£owicz" milk company, which products are popular around whole Poland, is a women wearing the £owicz costume:
google.nl/search?biw=1440&bih=743&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=%C5%82owicz+mleko&oq=%C5%82owicz+mleko&gs_l=img.3...0.0.4.65049.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.msedr...0...1c..61.img..0.0.0.JslaArTHgTg&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.83829542,d.d2s&dpr=1&ech=1&psi=MfO6VOWqHY7S aNCJgEg.1421538101348.7&ei=IPS6VJaODtHvav3wgPgN&emsg=NCSR&noj=1

Dziękuję bardzo, kpc21! May I ask, is it acceptable for the £owicz costume to be worn by anyone from Mazovia, or is it acceptable to be worn by someone from £owicz only?

Sorry for my delayed reply, I did not notice your post until now! :)

It's specific for £owicz. Except for £owicz and a few areas in the far south in Podhale, folk costumes have almost entirely fallen out of use in Poland. Even in £owicz, they are used only for certain religious festivals, especially Corpus Christi, and for folk music concerts and similar cultural events.

Thank you. Even if they have fallen out of use, I would still love to own one -- they're so beautiful!

You would have to do your research into the historical costume of the particular village you are interested in, and have a tailor or seamstress make it for you. Cities generally did not have folk costumes. Folk costumes are actually of recent origin, having become popular especially in the 1800's. Until then, people could not afford the cloth or the dyes for elaborate, colorful and uniform costumes like the £owicz one.

Even though this costumes are no longer used, they - or especially the woman skirt with colorful strips (so called "pasiak") - are something like a symbol of £owicz and £owicz culture. Even some of local buses are painted in colorful strips:

These costumes are also quite popular in the town of £owicz for the children for their First Communion religious ceremony.

£owicz is rather unusual in Poland as far as folk culture and costumes are concerned. And very few people who live in "Mazovia" nowadays refer to themselves as "Mazovians". The same is true for almost all other regions in Poland, except Kashubians, some (upper) Silesians, and some mountaineers in Podhale. In the rest of Poland, identification with historical regions is very low, and people just consider themselves "Poles". The borders of the modern Województwa were arbitrarily drawn and often do not coincide with the historical regions. Mazowieckie includes areas that have never been "Mazovian", and excludes core Mazovian centers like £owicz, Skierniewice, Rawa Mazowiecka and £ódź.

£ódź has never been a Mazovian centre :) It has more in common with Greater Poland than with Mazovia. Or, to be precise, with the regions of Sieradz and £ęczyca. But some areas of the £ódź urban agglomeration (its north-east outskirts) belong historically to the £owicz region.

Generally speaking, £ódź is a product of the industrial revolution. Before, it was a small village.

It may also be related to the rise of a sense of National identity across Europe after the French Revolution.


Is that because Stalin moved all the borders after the war?

Maybe a bit yes - for example many people from the lands on the east (so called Kresy Wschodnie - Eastern Borderlands), which were given to the Soviet Union. were forced to move to the areas taken from Germany (Ziemie Odzyskane - Regained Lands) which resulted in diminishing regional identity. But generally speaking, the historical division into regions has often nothing in common with the current administrative needs.

And up to the moment of the introduction of the current administrative division of the country, from the WW2, the voivodships were named - quite reasonably - from their capital cities. For example there was "województwo warszawskie", "województwo poznańskie", "województwo katowickie" (for a short period of time called "województwo stalinogrodzkie" bacause the name of the city of Katowice was changed into Stalinogród - in "honour" of Stalin). It was so from the end of the war to 1975, when the division was similar to the current one, as well as between 1975 and 1998, when there were much more smaller voivodships and no powiats. But in 1998, when the current division was introduced, somebody thought it would be cool and "European" if they name the voivodships from the regions. And regardless of the fact that the division which they were introducing had less in common with the historical reigons than the one from the communist times (up to 1975), they did so.

No. This was done in 1999, and had nothing to do with communism.

Someone (probably some schoolchild somewhere) just got it in their head that resurrecting the historical names of regions that had long ceased to exist would be a good idea, somehow, kinda sorta, and the sejm just kinda sorta said, like, ok, without putting much thought into it. No one actually remembers who, how or why. And now we're stuck with those silly names.

Can ALL posters keep to the topic please, the discussion is about traditional Polish costumes.

Thank you for your amusing replies, kpc21 and DominicB. :D