This is the story of Finnish ancient dresses, of dress fragments found in graves and of costumes made according to them. These costumes have become the festal garments of many Finnish women, but only few know the history of them.
These dresses are not national costumes although they have often been confused with them. National costumes are copied or constructed according to the peasant dresses of the 18th and 19th centuries. The costumes we are studying now are more or less scientific reconstructions of much older garments deriving from the Viking Age and centuries following.
Author(s): Pirkko-Liisa Lehtosalo-Hilander
Publisher: The Finnish Archaeological Society
Year: 1984
Language: English
Commentary: Swedish summary (pp. 65-76) is missing.
Pages: 78
City: Helsinki
Ancient Finnish Costumes - Intro
From Grave Finds to Reconstructions
Finnish inhumation cemeteries
Textile finds and dresses
Excavations in the field and in laboratories
Colours under the microscope
Fabrics and materials
From details to dress
Sketches and Adaptations
The first pictures of ancient Finnish costumes
The sketches of the costumes from Tuukkala
Ancient costumes on the stage
What the scientist said
Aino costume
Hjalmar Appelgren-Kivalo's book and the first "Eura costumes"
Reconstructions for Exhibition and for Use
The Perniƶ costume
The first dress
The splendid spiral decoration
The ornaments
Uncertain details
The Tuukkala costume
A dress for use
The ornaments of the first Tuukkala costumes
The ornaments newly reconstructed
The new costumes made according to finds from Ladoga Karelia
The ancient Karelian dress
Karelian ornaments
The Kaukola costume
A confusing interlude
The Eura costume
The find
Results of textile and colour analyses
The apron
The long-sleeved garment
The dress with tablet-woven bands
The final reconstruction of the Eura costume
Uniform and Dissimilar Fashion
Women's costume and its ornaments in Western Finland during the late Iron Age
Development of fashion in other parts of Finland
Specific Eastern Finnish details
Western traits in the east
Basic structure of costumes in Northern Europe
The origin of Finnish spiral ornamentation
Real or imagined schools of decoration?
Pan-European trends of fashion?Select bibliography
The Masku Costume