In 2004, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, then Minister of Education, Science, and Culture, appeared on live television wearing Iceland’s national costume. The outfit seemed perfectly appropriate for the occasion, which was the reopening of the National Museum of Iceland following its renovation. But it soon became clear that the Minister’s choice of outfit had backfired – all because of her unconventional way of styling the costume. By wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath the traditional bodice instead of a blouse, and skipping the tail cap, she bravely chose to embrace her own personal preferences instead of adhering to custom. To the layperson, this may have seemed like a minor issue, but some experts regarded the Minister’s unorthodox way of wearing the costume a serious breach of tradition and described it as a mockery of the Icelandic national costume.
Whether Þorgerður’s representation of the national costume was a faux-pas or not is still up for debate. However, a broader discussion on whether wearing the national costume allows space for personal expression is clearly more pronounced today than just a few years ago. After all, the Icelandic national costume has undergone considerable changes throughout the years without losing its significance as one of the country’s most important elements of cultural heritage.
The fall and rise of the national costume
The history of the Icelandic national costume is surprisingly short. The earliest recorded sources on the costumes are paintings and manuscript illustrations that date back to the 16th and 17th centuries. The traditional faldbúningur, the centrepiece of which is a hat decorated with a curved sheet- like ornament that protrudes into the air, was regularly worn by Icelandic women of all ages and social classes until the mid-nineteenth century. It is unknown why the faldbúningur eventually fell out of fashion, but its decline is presumably linked to foreign clothing trends that had started to influence Icelandic fashion at the time.
In the mid-nineteenth century, during the budding Icelandic independence movement, growing Danish influence on Icelandic culture was one of the leading concerns. In the minds of the proponents for independence, reviving “purely” Icelandic traditions was key to establishing a new sense of national consciousness. With this in mind, Sigurður Guðmundsson, an artist and an active member of the independence movement, started directing his attention to Icelandic fashion. He thought it was a shame that traditional Icelandic garments were being replaced by Danish ones, and believed that the situation could be remedied by redesigning the faldbúningur with the needs and preferences of contemporary Icelandic women in mind. His work resulted in two brand-new versions of the traditional faldbúningur: the skautbúningur and the kyrtill.
Sigurður Guðmundsson’s mission turned out to be rather successful. The new versions of the national costumes were well received by Icelandic women and became quite widespread towards the end of the nineteenth century. For instance, the national costume became a school uniform for the first women-only upper secondary institution, Kvennaskólinn í Reykjavík, which was established in 1874. The dress became optional after 1906, but many students kept wearing it to school throughout the next decade. Today, the national costume continues to be worn, though primarily on special occasions. It is accepted as an alternative to gala attire and some brides even favour it over a wedding gown. People wearing the national costume are also a common sight on national holidays, such as Icelandic National Day and Sovereignty Day.
“A matter of personal expression”
Ingibjörg Brynja Finnbjörnsdóttir is a nineteen-year-old student at Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík, a junior college. She wore a national costume at her confirmation ceremony, the only one in her cohort, she tells me. As she got older, her interest in the garment grew. A few years ago, she sewed her own national costume in collaboration with her grandmother. The task took almost a year, and the process was extremely laborious and time-consuming. “My grandma did all the hard work while I idly tended to the more intricate details,” she admits.
Ingibjörg’s costume is a very widespread version of the national costume called upphlutur, which used to be an undergarment for the faldbúningur but has evolved into a separate outfit. The main characteristic of the elegant upphlutur is an ornamented bodice that is open in the middle and laced together with a silver thread. “This is not a common thing at all,” Ingbjörg tells me when I ask her if girls her age are generally interested in wearing or even making their own national costume. Despite that, she has not hesitated to wear her costume on different occasions, sometimes combining parts of it with modern garments. She tells me that she has worn the bodice with dress trousers instead of the traditional woollen skirt on more than one occasion. Although she really liked the way it looked, she could sense that some people found the combination somewhat offensive. “The way I styled it was very unorthodox. Many of those who belong to the national costume community feel very strongly about the ways in which the costume is represented and I suspect that not all of them were happy about it,” she says. Another one of Ingibjörg’s rebellious moves is to not own a tail cap, which is the accepted headwear for the upphlutur. “I just think it’s ugly,” she admits. “I’m never going to get myself a tail cap, I cringe at the thought of it.”
By definition, national costumes express a shared identity: a sense of belonging to a nation whose customs, history, and tradition form a unique whole. In Iceland, the national costume also symbolises the struggle for independence from Denmark that began in the 19th century, a process that required a systematic reconceptualisation of the country’s national culture. At the same time, national costumes express personal and familial pride. Behind each national costume lie hundreds of hours of work, and the silver accessories that accompany the costume are often valuable family heirlooms. To Ingibjörg, embracing the personal significance of the national costume is no less important than communicating its national symbolism.
“I think it’s so nice that Icelanders have their own national costume, but in the end, it’s a matter of personal expression,” she says. “Some people like wearing it while others do not, and it is important to respect people’s choices.” She adds that people should also be unafraid of styling it on their own terms instead of conforming to the “acceptable” ways of wearing it. For herself, wearing the costume is a source of pride and confidence. “Whenever I wear it, I feel like the belle of the ball,” she says laughing.
“If we give it space to evolve organically, the tradition will survive.”
A time for a new national costume?
Does there necessarily need to be tension between personal expression and a respect for custom when it comes to the national costume? In their BA dissertation, ethnologist Anna Karen Unnsteins researched how the notion of a “correct use” of the Icelandic national costume is reflected in the views of professionals and users of the costume of various ages. Their findings indicate that although formal guidelines on the “correct” usage of the national costume do not exist, the older generations tend to hold somewhat conservative views on how to wear it. These informal rules include the requirement to always wear the tail cap with the upphlutur, and to wear the correct type of shirt and skirt under the bodice. “The representatives of the younger generation I interviewed did not share these views at all,” Anna Karen tells me. Although they were regular users of the costume and deeply cared about it, they were not too preoccupied about how others choose to wear them.
Both Ingibjörg and Anna Karen believe that the generational shift in the mindset towards the use of the costume has already started to influence public discourse. In 2012, just eight years after the scandalous representation of the costume by the Minister of Education, pop star Gréta Salóme performed in the Eurovision Song Contest wearing a dress inspired by the national costume. Although the lower part of the dress was long enough to resemble a traditional woollen skirt on stage, Gréta’s decision not to wear a long- sleeved shirt under the dress was an obvious deviation from the conventional use of the costume. However, no uproar was caused this time. On the contrary, Gréta’s adaption of the national costume was widely praised by costume enthusiasts and professionals. “The dress made me think about whether it isn’t about time that our talented fashion designers introduce a new version of the women’s costume that would be relevant today, without losing its reference to the past.
The new costume could become an addition to already existing versions of the costume; the upphlutur, peysuföt, kyrtill and the skautbúningur,” historian Eyrún Ingadóttir wrote in an op-ed shortly after Gréta competed in the Eurovision Song Contest. She added that some components of the national costume do not suit modern fashion, such as the tail cap, whose design was meant to complement long braids. Considering that, it is not surprising that many modern women do not seem to be fond of the tail cap.
Anna Karen says that although the positive response to Gréta’s unconventional representation of the national costume is quite remarkable, it is important to note the different context. “While Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir is a politician who wore the costume during the opening of an exhibition at the National Museum of Iceland, Gréta is a pop singer who was representing Iceland on foreign ground. We tend to hold politicians to a higher standard, which may explain the different reactions.” However, Anna Karen is certain that the shift in mindset towards the “correct” use of the national costume is part of a larger societal shift. “Icelandic society has developed significantly over the past few years, and it is certainly part of a bigger global trend. People are more open to all forms of diversity than they used to be, which influences how they view the national costume,” they say.
A bright future for an evolving costume
Anna Karen’s fascination with the national costume started before they became a student of ethnology. They tell me that in their case, it’s a family thing. “I have always had a national costume, even when I was little.” Their mother got married in an upphlutur, which used to belong to Anna Karen’s great grandmother. Today, the garment belongs to Anna Karen themself. “There was always a national costume around and I have always found it very beautiful,” they tell me. Now they are in the second year of their master’s studies and will shortly commence a new research project on the national costume and young people. “I honestly do not know how young people in Iceland generally feel about the national costume,” they admit. In her research, they intend to focus on three upper secondary schools in Iceland who celebrate the national costume every year. During these celebrations, students get the chance to wear peysuföt, a casual version of the national costume, and sing and dance to traditional Icelandic music. These events often attract a lot of public attention, since some of them take place outdoors in downtown Reykjavik.
Neither Ingibjörg nor Anna Karen are sure whether these events spark interest in the national costume among young people. However, their ways of styling it may be shaping peoples’ views on the appropriate ways of wearing it. Photos from the national costume days of two upper secondary schools, Verzló and Kvennaskólinn, depict young students wearing the national costume quite liberally: over a turtleneck, without a tail cap, in colourful shirts, and so on. “I have heard that the costume rental most students get their outfits from allows them to style the costumes according to their preferences. They also resist the temptation to correct the ‘mistakes’ some of them make while putting it on.” As a result, the students’ ways of wearing the costumes are guided by their own sense of style, which varies from person to person. “Then they go on to make TikTok videos where they can be seen dancing around in the costume, which enhances the visibility of different personal expressions of it,” Anna Karen says.
There is some concern that the Icelandic national costume will eventually fall out of mainstream use and turn into an artefact exclusive to museums. When I ask Anna Karen about the future of the national costume, they emphasise that although its history is marked by periods of neglect, the costume has been successfully revived more than once. “I think that the ways in which the students are representing the costume at the moment could lay the foundations for the national costume of the 21st century. Perhaps the new standard would involve more colourful shirts or dropping the tail cap,” they say.
In 2001, Iceland’s Parliament established a committee whose role is to safeguard knowledge of the national costume and provide guidance on how to make it. The committee consists of experts in the craft as well as other specialists. It is important to note that the committee does not issue rules or norms on the correct use of the costume, although it does publish photos of people wearing it on their website, which might influence how the public perceives it, as Anna Karen points out. They are certain that the committee has affected how people choose to style their costumes, but when I ask them whether official initiatives of this kind are necessary to maintain the tradition, they admit it’s complicated. In the end, it is all a matter of a shared view of what the national costume is. “Perhaps it is necessary to have some kind of a higher authority in place to protect the tradition, that is if we want to hold on to the concept of a national costume. There has to be someone who defines what that is,” they say. “But there will always be different ideas, and there will always be some opposition.”
Nineteen-year-old Ingibjörg Brynja says she is very optimistic that the Icelandic national costume will evolve organically, according to current norms and ideas about clothing. “I definitely don’t think that the Icelandic national costume will cease to exist in the future,” Ingibjörg tells me. She says that the discussion on the possibility of the extinction of the national costume reminds her of concerns about the future of the Icelandic language. “If we give it space to evolve organically, the tradition will survive. I think that those who hold conservative views should keep that in mind.” She believes that there are plenty of opportunities for a development that would result in more interest amongst younger generations. “Like wearing the bodice with pants instead of a skirt or wearing the shirts differently, you know?” In other words, Ingibjörg believes that experimenting with the use of the national costume is not a rebellious act. On the contrary – it is vital for sustaining the tradition.
