There were calls for Welsh costume to be revived and used at major national events, especially Royal visits. Griffiths, 1851)Īlthough the traditional costume went out of common use by the middle of the 19th century it was still worn by some women at market and for special events. The origins of the national costume Welsh Fashions Taken on a Market Day in Wales (R.
From then on, many writers assumed that she had a great influence on the wearing of Welsh costume by rural women throughout Wales during the 19th century, which, it was supposed, led to the creation of a National Costume but there is very little evidence for this. Her apparent influence on Welsh costume was greatly exaggerated following the publication in 1963 of an article on Welsh Peasant costume and this caused the general misapprehension that she was responsible for either inventing or preserving traditional Welsh costume. This was the first time that they had been published since the 1830s. Some of them were published in an article in 1951. The prints of costumes of parts of Wales which she may have commissioned did not have a wide distribution. Women in towns and those who lived near the Welsh-English border or near busy ports were already wearing English fashions, often made of cotton.ĭuring the 1830s, certain members of the gentry, especially Augusta Hall (later Lady Llanover) of Llanover near Abergavenny, recorded and tried to preserve some Welsh traditions, including costume. They noted that the women in rural parts of Wales wore a distinctive costume which varied from place to place. Very little evidence for traditional Welsh costume survives before about 1770 when the first tourists came to Wales and recorded in words and pictures the costumes worn by women in Wales. History A study of the Welsh costume in parts of Gower (left) and Cardiganshire (right) The costume is now recognised as the national dress of Wales.
It was first worn by girls as a celebration on Saint David's Day just before the First World War. From then on it was worn by women at events such as Royal visits, by choirs, at church and chapel, for photographs and occasionally at eisteddfodau. It is likely that the Welsh costume began as a rural costume (with regional variations within Wales) and became recognised as a traditional costume by the wives and daughters of the better-off farmers, who wore it for special occasions and when going to market to sell their produce.įrom the 1880s, when the traditional costume had gone out of general use, selected elements of it became adopted as a National Costume. The unique Welsh hat, which first made its appearance in the 1830s, was used as an icon of Wales from the 1840s. This included a version of the gown, originally worn by the gentry in the 17th and 18th centuries, an item of clothing that survived in Wales for longer than elsewhere in Britain. It is very likely that what they wore was a survival of a pan-European costume worn by working rural women. It was identified as being different from that worn by the rural women of England by many of the English visitors who toured Wales during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Welsh traditional costume ( Welsh: Gwisg Gymreig draddodiadol) was worn by rural women in Wales.
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