National liberation skirt

Boissevain-van Lennep had been imprisoned in 1943 for her involvement with the Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Soon after, a scarf was smuggled into her cell that had been constructed of textile patches of personal significance—including a piece of her first ballgown and pieces from her children's clothing.{{Cite web|url=http://www.historyofquilts.com/feestrok.html|title=Dutch Patchwork National Celebration Skirts After World War II|last=Breneman|first=Judy|date=2004|website=History of quilts|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328053129/http://www.historyofquilts.com/feestrok.html|archive-date=2019-03-28|url-status=dead|access-date=2019-05-04}}{{Cite web|url=http://blog.europeana.eu/2019/05/liberation-skirts-how-post-war-upcycling-became-a-symbol-of-female-solidarity/|title=Liberation skirts: how post-war upcycling became a symbol of female solidarity|date=May 3, 2019|website=Europeana (CC By-SA)|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-05-03}} As a member of a post-war women's committee intending to celebrate the rebuilding of the Netherlands and inspired by her memory of that scarf, she devised a skirt to represent "unity in diversity" ({{lang|nl|eenheid in veelheid}}); "new from old" ({{lang|nl|nieuw uit oud}}); "building from the broken" ({{lang|nl|opbouw uit afbraak}}) and "one garment makes unity" ({{lang|nl|één dracht maakt eendracht}})."{{Cite web|url=https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/individual-textiles-and-textile-types/commemorative-and-commissioned-textiles/feestrok-trc|title=Feestrok|date=2016-11-27|website=Textile Research Centre (TRC), Leiden|language=en-gb|access-date=2019-05-03}} She called it the {{lang|nl|nationale feestrok}}.{{Cite web|url=http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nationale-feestrok|title=Nationale Feestrok - Acquisitions 2004|date=2004|website=Rijksmuseum Amsterdam|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016232852/http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nationale-feestrok?lang=en|archive-date=2012-10-16|url-status=dead|access-date=2019-05-03}}

The idea was that these unique skirts would be worn during national holidays and similar events as a symbol of both individuality and national unity.{{Cite web|url=http://members.ziggo.nl/boissevain/Boissevain//EN/boissevainbulletin.htm|title=Boissevain timeline|website=Boissevain|access-date=2019-05-03|archive-date=2019-05-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190522235659/http://members.ziggo.nl/boissevain/Boissevain//EN/boissevainbulletin.htm|url-status=dead}} In the words of a song composed in honour of the idea: "Weave the pattern of your life into your skirt" ({{lang|nl|Vlecht in Uw rok het patroon van Uw leven)}}.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_gid001199101_01/_gid001199101_01_0054.php|title=De Gids. Jaargang 154 · dbnl|last=DBNL|website=DBNL|language=nl|access-date=2019-05-04}} Through handmade patchwork, the skirts also literally symbolised the concept of postwar reconstruction.

File:Tentoonstelling 'Oud Ede'.jpg" (1980), Ede Historical Museum.]]

{{Block quote|text=According to Boissevain's guidelines, one was free to vary the pattern of the skirt. Only with regard to the hem did she lay down strict rules: the hem should consist of plain triangles, in which women were to write the years they wore their skirt. And everybody should start by embroidering {{lang|nl|5 mei 1945}} on the front. The rest of the pieces of the skirt were preferably to consist of authentic, used cloth and should not only be inscribed with important national events but also with important family ones. In the skirt of life the two kinds of experience that together shape a woman's life, the personal and the political, were to be combined...

Two issues are central: the Wederopbouw (reconstruction), i.e. the rebuilding of society, and the Doorbraak (breakthrough), i.e. the widespread wish to break through the restrictive old divisions of severe élitism and a religion-based party system (depillarisation).|sign=Jolande Withuis|source=}} To ensure that all {{lang|nl|feestrok}} were handmade, the International Archives for the Women's Movement was assigned responsibility for registering and numbering each skirt. More than 4,000 received official registration.

At the request of the {{ill|Netherlands Information Bureau|nl|Nederlands Informatiebureau}} (NIB), Boissevain-van Lennep travelled to the United States in 1949, visiting 27 states and championing the "Magic Skirts of Reconstruction". Her preferred nickname was "levensrok" (skirt of life) while others in the Netherlands used "bevrijdingsrok" (liberation skirt) or "oranjerok" (orange skirt, referring to the House of Orange, the reigning Dutch royal family). Each had one or more triangles sewn near the front hem on which the date of the Dutch Liberation Day, 5 May 1945, was embroidered; some also had the dates of later celebrations in which the makers participated. Prominent among the colours in these {{lang|nl|feestrok}} were the Dutch national colours: red, white, blue, and orange. The skirts were individually registered in a national archive under the names of their makers, and their identification number was often embroidered into the skirt itself.

On 2 September 1948, some 1500 women wearing {{lang|nl|feestrok}} took part in a parade in Amsterdam marking the Golden Jubilee of Queen Wilhelmina's coronation and coinciding with the exhibition {{ill|The Dutch Woman 1898–1948|nl|De Nederlandse Vrouw 1898–1948}}.

Some of these skirts are now in the collections of museums, including the Rijksmuseum, the National Liberation Museum, and the Textile Research Centre in Leiden. The Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum) in Amsterdam holds Mies Boissevain-van Lennep's own {{lang|nl|feestrok}}.

File:National liberation skirt, 4 May 1946.JPG

File:National liberation skirt with National Institute registration stamp 1948.JPG

File:National liberation skirt with National Institute registration stamp 1947.JPG

File:National liberation skirt with National Institute registration stamp 1946, blue edge with date 5 May 1945.JPG

• Folk costume
• Netherlands in World War II

{{Commons category|Nationale Feestrok}}

{{External video|video1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAX0QBL0vK4 "Feestrok overdracht"] by Atria Institute (2009)}}

{{reflist}}

• Aggregated search results for "[https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/search?q=Nationale%20feestrok Nationale feestrok]" from several cultural heritage organisations on Europeana.

Category:Skirts

Category:Dutch clothing

Category:Textile arts

Category:1940s in the Netherlands

Category:Aftermath of World War II in the Netherlands

Category:Embroidery