Tag: bunads

The Hardanger bunad is probably the national costume that has the longest association with the Norwegian royal family. Princess Maud of Wales received a costume as a present from the city of Bergen in 1893, when she visited the area. The photograph was later turned into postcards.

(An article in Bergens Tidende from 1906 says that the Queen also received a Hardanger bunad from the women of Odda, and wore it, when she and the King visited Odda after the coronation in 1906.)

Queen Maud’s Hardangerbunad joined the exhibition of her clothing (Style and Splendour: Queen Maud of Norway’s Wardrobe 1896 – 1938) at the V&A Museum in 2005-2006.

Around the time of the Norwegian independence the Hardanger bunad was considered more of a national than a regional costume, and wearing it was a political statement. It was called Nasjonalen (The national.)

Princess Astrid received a Hardanger bunad in October 1959 from Ungdomslaget i Hardanger. She has worn it on multiple occasions, among others, when her son Alexander Ferner got married, and on a centenary celebratory service in Holmenkollen chapel.  (on page 6 in Risbladet.)

Crown Princess Mette-Marit received a Hardanger bunad as a wedding present from the Hardanger council in 2001. She wore the bunad on the county visit to Hordaland in 2002.

Her maternal grandmother came from the farm Fosso by Kvam in Hardanger. Mette-Marit last visited the farm when she was 6 years old, and remembered playing with the goats there.

Mette-Marit has frequently worn the Hardanger bunad since she first got it, lastly for the 2014 Christmas photo shoot at the palace (and the photoshoot the year before that.) On the service marking the centenary of the coronation of Haakon and Maud in 1906, Mette-Marit also wore the Hardanger bunad.

She also wore it when greeting the Children’s parade on May 17 2003 at Skaugum, in 2006, in 2010, and on May 17th, 2014 on the palace balcony for marking the bicentenary of the constitution.

The Crown Prince and his family reside at Skaugum, which is a farm in Asker municipality, just south-west of Oslo. This have been a tradition since the 20s.

The Asker bunad is based on a patterned cloth that was woven at the vicarage in Asker in 1807. The bunad feature the replicated cloth either in the skirt on the females or on a waistcoat in the male version. The vest for the females can be either green or red.

Unlike a lot of fancier bunads, which may be very embroidered or feature a lot of silver jewelry, this bunad is simple and plain. Though very beautiful in its simplicity.

Queen Sonja (then Crown Princess) and Princess Märtha Louise in the bunad in 1980 – greeting the children’s parade. And in 1981.

Princess Märtha Louise wearing an adult version.

In 2008, almost the whole Crown Princely family, save Marius, wore the Asker bunad while greeting the children’s parade.

It is definitely a bunad which shows where the family live and it is connected to them, but it is rarely, if ever, worn outside the municipality.

Jelsa is a small town in South West Norway. It’s a minimum 3 hour drive (depending on ferries) from Norway’s 4th largest city.

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Jelsa is interesting in this context only because Crown Princess Mette-Marit has a national costume from there.

Last week, I talked about how the wearer of the bunads tend to have a connection to the place the bunads are from. In Rogaland, the majority of the bunads tend to look alike in style. It is the embroidery patterns that are different. Generally, for the bigger cities, the connection tend to be to Rogaland, and not to the specific place the pattern origined. For smaller places, they might have a different, more specific, costume.

Mette-Marit’s mother, Marit Tjessem, is from Sandnes in Rogaland. Mette-Marit, who grew up in Kristiansand, got a national costume from Rogaland for her religious confirmation, instead of Vest Agder. Norwegian girls tend to get the bunads as a gift for their confirmations, if they want it, and their families can afford it.

A bunad is probably the most festive outfit in Norway. In status, it is equivalent to a gala outfit for big events as well as familiar happenings. For example: Mette-Marit wore her bunad for Marius’ christening.

During the engagement, she wore it when she and Haakon visited the folk museum in Valdres.

She regularly wears the Jelsa bunad. Last major public event she wore it for was the National Day last year, when she and the rest of the family greeted the children’s parade at Skaugum. (At the link you can also see a picture of teenaged Mette-Marit wearing the same bunad.)

As the mother of three, Mette-Marit is still wearing the same bunad that she wore when she was 15. She is clearly not the same size anymore. The secret is that bunads tend to be made slightly big for the 15 year old, but also made with (large) inseams that can be let out as needed.

Even so, the most common topic around the Norwegian tables or magazines, before a big event or May 17, is probably if the bunad has “shrunk” since last year, and the women trying to eat sensibly to fit into it…

In theory, to wear a  Norwegian national costume, (a bunad), you should have some relationship with the place the bunad comes from. Either with an ancestor from the area or living in the area yourself.  Or sometimes, gifting to a royal, it is good  PR when the royal is photographed in it.

“The red jacket bunad from East Telemark is kind of mostly mine bunad. I got it from my mother on the occasion of our wedding. My family came from Telemark, and I thought it was a natural choice for me.” – Queen Sonja in Bunadmagasinet.

Queen Sonja’s parents were both born in Skien, in Telemark. Both she, and her daughter Princess Märtha Louise, own Telemark bunads. Märtha Louise inherited hers from her paternal grandmother.

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Map of Telemark.

Crown Princess Märtha, while Swedish-born, received three Telemark bunads . The first one was made and given to her by Anne Bamle in the late 1920s. Then Skaugum burned down. Crown Princess Märtha received a new bunad, also made by Anne Bamle. The Second World War  broke out, and the royal family had to flee the country. Terboven occupied Skaugum during the war. The bunad disappeared.

After the war, a third bunad was made. It is this bunad that Märtha Louise wore for her confirmation, and continues to wear to this day.

Both she and Queen Sonja often wear them on official occasions.

“The red jacket bunad, that I like to call my bunad, I use on a lot of occasions. A day of official business can be filled with many different things. It can be everything from church visits, and care home visits, to exhibitions and lunches. Many different activities. The bunad is very practical. And the shoes are good. That’s also important when I have to be on my feet most of the day.” – Queen Sonja.

The East Telemark bunad has a red jacket on top of the shirt and dress. The red jacket hail back to the 1700s, while the rest of the costume has history to the first half of the 1800s.

You can also wear it without the red jacket, as the Queen did at the annual Christmas photo shoot last year.