Sustainability #04
Give us
your Fabric
Textiles with history
Give us your Fabric…
… was the call of the European Hansemuseum in May 2022. We were looking for textiles with unique histories. From over 90 exciting submissions, a selection had to be made – not an easy task! Here are nine fabric stories that particularly impressed us.
The linen sheet that became a dress
Mrs Hoffmann’s mother was born in 1922 and grew up with five younger siblings on a small farm in Lower Saxony. As was customary at the time, she received a dowry for her wedding. Part of this dowry was also bed linen and linen sheets with the monogram “D.R”, i.e. the first letters of her first and last name.
When Mrs Hoffmann inherited the linen, she had use for the bed linen, but the linen sheet ended up unused in the cupboard.
Her good friend, Mrs Richter, finally had the idea of sewing a summer dress from the fine linen sheet. The dress has become a favourite piece of Mrs Hoffmann’s and keeps memories of her mother alive.
The engagement dress that became a christening gown
In 1915, Mrs Boltz’s grandmother got engaged in Aahus, Denmark. When Mrs Boltz was to be baptised in 1950, her grandmother sewed the engagement dress into a christening gown. Since then, the dress has been used for the family’s baptisms, most recently for Mrs Boltz’s children in 1984 and 1987. Today, the fabric is over 100 years old and awaits its next use.
An underskirt from one’s own field
In a cupboard in the attic of the Langenbach family in Hamburg is a white underskirt (or undergarment). This comes from the great-grandmother Elisabeth, who was born in 1886. Elisabeth ran a farm in Lower Saxony with her husband Clemens. Flax was grown, processed and spun there.
The underskirt is therefore the family’s own production and over 100 years old, so it is still well preserved today. The initials of Elisabeth are embroidered on the collar to commemorate its maker.
Wedding dress remains wedding dress
Mrs Vietor-Engelke’s wedding dress is a very special one for the family: it was designed in 1956 by Mrs Vietor-Engelke’s mother, who studied “fashion class” at the Bremen School of Art. The dress was sewn by a friend of her mother’s who was a dressmaker.
When Mrs Vietor-Engelke married in 1983, she had her mother’s dress altered and fitted in the same tailor’s shop.
Another 30 years later, her daughter was looking for a suitable wedding dress. She too decided on the family piece. It was again slightly adapted to taste and person. If you look closely, you will recognise the lace and also a bow on the lower back of all three women. So three generations of the family have already married in the same dress.
The coat made of cashmere plaid
The shortage of materials after the Second World War also brought new conditions for the customers of the Parisian tailor’s studios: if you wanted to have something tailored in 1945, you had to bring the material yourself. Mrs Lewis therefore brought her good cashmere plaid with her to the French capital and had it tailored into a fine coat.
Mrs. Levy-Artmann always enjoyed wearing the high-quality coat, which is still in good condition despite being almost 80 years old.
A uniform for an engagement
Mrs. Brenne’s parents met while dancing in Lüneburg after the Second World War. Her mother did an apprenticeship as a seamstress. For her engagement in 1947 she sewed a costume from an old uniform, the jacket of which is still in the family today. As a child, Mrs Brenne also had winter coats sewn from the same material and old woollen blankets.
The skirt that became a pillow
The garden bench of the Pletzing family in Flensburg is colourful and comfortable: a long, strikingly patterned cushion offers excellent seating comfort. But the beautiful fabric wasn’t always a cushion cover: in the 1950s, Mrs. Pletzing’s mother wore it as a skirt. Over time, fashion changed, but instead of throwing the skirt away, Mrs. Pletzing repurposed it – now the textile makes for a colourful seat.
The flour sacks that became a shirt
After the Second World War, there was a shortage of everything in Germany. To alleviate the famine, the U.S. sent care packages to Germany starting in June 1946. These contained bags of flour as well as canned goods. At that time, everything was reused or recycled. Textiles were also scarce, so this shirt that Mrs. Beck sent us was probably made from American flour sacks.
The children’s dress that became a christening gown
For the wedding of her uncle in 1929, Mrs. Oesting and her sister got new dresses. It was customary to sew dresses in a way that they would fit the girls for several years: There was a wide hem that could be left out wider and wider. Even as teenagers, they still found the fabric so beautiful, that the dresses were re-sewn into blouses. Later, the blouses became children’s dresses for the sisters’ grandchildren. And so, since 2000, more than 70 years after its purchase, the fabric is still used as the family’s christening gown.
© All images: Olaf Mahlzahn; Privatbesitz
