Sometimes I get grasped by things and they will not let me go. Going way too far with executing the project. The Gambämark folkdräkt was such a project (or is… my brain is not done yet). First what is Gambämark? It is a musical from humorgruppen KAJ that is about a fictional self-sustaining community in Ostrobothnia, a Swedish speaking region in Finland. Everything was better in the past and everybody seems happy, or are they? I really loved the musical, not only because it is very funny, but I have a weak spot for folk dress and especially the Nordic ones. Looking at the costumes from the musical I noticed that the stripes on the waistcoat are applied ribbons on a green fabric. A totally understandable choice for theatre costumes. I thought about how it should look when it was the real deal. It probably would be a woven fabric with the stripe pattern woven into the fabric. I do weave and have a huge loom on my attic so one and one is two and I needed to make that fabric. This is how my brain works and I accepted a long time ago that when the idea is there it needs to be done.
But where to start? I searched the internet for information about the weaving of the striped dräkt fabrics. I mainly focused on Sweden and Finland and I found two options. One where the warp and the weft are both wool and the version where the warp is cotton or linen and the weft is wool. I have a contramarch loom so a 2/1 twill is possible without a lot of problems and that would benefit the visibility of the stripes. So, the choice was made to make the fabric with a green woollen warp and a woollen weft in green, red and yellow with a thread count of 10 threads per cm. A choice I regret a bit because most Finnish samples have the linen warp… (I might make the fabric again with this technique. I am not done with this project yet)
In the meantime, I went on a small holiday to Helsinki and there I bought a book about Finlandssvenska folkdräkt at a peculiar little store from Brage in what looked like a normal apartment. Brage is the place to be for Finnish swedish folk culture. A little nervous I knocked on the door and a little treasure of folk costumes opened before my eyes. With my A1 swedish I bought the book and a knitting pattern for stockings. The book helped me a lot to understand the patterns and to find what region was the inspiration for the Gambämark costumes. Which was mostly Orovais and not Vörå what I assumed as KAJ comes from Vörå. In Helsinki I also went to a KAJ show where Jakob Norrgård sang one of the songs from the musical in costume, so that counts as more research right?
Weaving the fabric went nicely and after a while I had 8,5 meters of the fabric, of which 1,5 was with a different stripe, because the character Kurt Bymann has a more elaborate stripe on his waistcoat, probably because he is the big boss.
The fashion of the male folk costumes is mostly based on 18th century clothing and I could alter patterns from that period to make all the garments I needed. I made a double-breasted waistcoat with two rows of brass buttons that I lined with antique linen. It was bit tricky to let most of the stripes align, but I think I did quite a decent job. The chemise was my favourite to make. The wide sleeves with smock work are gorgeous and made with the right fabric they give this wing effect. Luckily the book had an elaborate section about these shirts and also how to measure sleeve length. Most antique linen has a width of 60cm and this is also the width of the sleeves. The trousers are knee height and are closed with a flap. It felt very regency to me. Also once again brass buttons to close the flap at the top. Underneath are white stockings with shoes that once again scream 18th century with big shoe buckles. And yeah, I’ll be honest I get weak knees from good calves in long stockings. For the Kurt costume I also made a coat from black wool with brass buttons that are mostly decorative.
In the end it took quite some time to make this costume, but I learned loads as this “period” is a bit out of my comfort zone. I made everything by hand with some and here is the finished result of Josua.
sources:
https://butik.brage.fi
https://drakterjh.se/portfolio/mansdrakt/
Silk and Iron 