A dirndl skirt generally describes a light circular-cut dress, gathered at the waist, that falls below the knee. The dirndl consists of a bodice and skirt or a pinafore dress, a low-cut blouse with dating ukrainian girl reddit puff sleeves, full skirt, and apron. The winter style dirndl has heavy, warm skirts and aprons made of thick cotton, linen, velvet or wool, and long sleeves. The colors are usually rich and dark.
The summer style is lighter and more revealing, has short sleeves, and is often made of lightweight cotton. Accessories may include a long apron tied round the waist, a waistcoat or a wool shawl. In many regions, especially the Ausseerland, vibrantly colored, hand-printed silk scarfs and silk aprons are worn. Women often wear necklaces, earrings and brooches made of silver, the antlers of deer or even animals’ teeth. Different styles were worn in different regions, but they are now more universally generalized. The typical dirndl and folk costume varies from one region, or even village, to another.
Folk costume has various details according to the place of origin and social status of the wearer. The modern dirndl is heavily stylized but clearly influenced by typical Bavarian costume. The dirndl originated as a more hardy form of the costume worn today: the uniform of Austrian domestic workers during the nineteenth century. Simple forms were also worn commonly by working women in plain colors or a simple check. The Austrian upper classes adopted the dirndl as high fashion in the 1870s, making it a highly fashionable and popular must-have item in the nation soon after.
Both skirts and pinafore dresses with vest-shaped tank tops, cooking aprons, and blouses were commonplace in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The basic blouse-skirt-corset idea came from the eastern regions of the Swiss Alps, and was originally simple rural clothing. It became female Austrian servant work clothes as well as Alpine peasant attire in the eighteenth century and exclusively servant’s work clothes in the nineteenth century. Dirndls and Landhausmode were abandoned for a while after World War II. While the wearing of the corresponding garments was scarcely popular in the 1970s, it has grown strongly since the 1990s. In the twenty-first century, fashion designers have adopted the dirndl, with varying results. In Switzerland, the dirndl is the official outfit for certain representations, events, cultural shows, and while singing old folk songs often involving yodeling.
Today, dirndls vary from simple off-the-shelf styles to exquisitely crafted, very expensive models. Germany and Austria have many manufacturers of the outfits. Both the open-collar and closed-collar versions are popular in those countries. In Austria, and other parts of south central Europe, there are literally splashy events known as Dirndlspringen, in which people, overwhelmingly attractive young women, are judged by how well they dive from a diving board into a lake or a swimming pool while wearing the dirndl. Germans, Austrian, Swiss, and Scandinavians people migrated to North America in the nineteenth century.
