cattleya: Gallery of European traditional costumes & cultural uniforms

Gallery of European traditional costumes & cultural uniforms

Gallery of European traditional costumes & cultural uniforms

This article shows a variety of cultural dress and traditional costumes from distinct European cultures. Note that there are too many varieties to possibly delineate, so this article emphasizes the cultural and ethnic traits of these peoples overall.

Croatia:
The Croatian costume reveals in some cases a middle point between their ethnic Slavic customs and the Hungarian & German authority that ruled Croatia for nearly 1,000 years.

Spain (including Galician Celts):
The famous Spanish costumes are unique to the Iberian peninsula, expressing the Portuguese' and Spaniards' distinct heritage and sovereignty. It must be acknowledged that each sub-national identity in Spain has its own national costume and visual heritage. Andalusia, the Catalans, the Basques, and the "Celts" of Galicia have their own costumes. Galicia in the northwest, whose inhabitants consider themselves descendents of the Celtoiberians and not of the mainland Spaniards, have a unique costume shocking to many because it is almost identical to that of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Castilian standard

Galician Celtic costumes of northwest Spain

Portugal:
Portuguese costume reveals a cultural and ethnic link to their Spanish brothers, with slight divergences to reflect Portugal's longer and distinct history. It is, interestingly, similar in many ways to Basque dress.

Basque Country:
The Basques of northern Spain attempt to use their bizarrely unique national dress as an outlet to express their independent history, customs, and tradition as the only surviving Spanish community free of Latin historic influence.

Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland:
Germany's costumes are slightly diverse. The major costume for men in Germanic countries (Norway, Denmark, Austria, Germany, etc.) is a form of the Lederhosen. For women, the dress varies broadly. In Brandenburg (the state housing Berlin), traditional dress may bear a slight Slavic influence because of the presence of Slavs there today and before the German empire conquered the region from the broken Polish state under Heinrich the Lion. In Switzerland, where the Germans are the majority population, the German-Austrian costume is generally worn. The French and Italian minorities wear their respective dresses. The Netherlands has famous distinctions of their own, derived largely from German tradition because of a shared heritage and history. Belgium's Dutch (the Flemings), having broken from the Dutch only in the 19th century, are largely indistinguishable in terms of national dress.