Witch, alien or nun: all together in the same pèkske, that creates a bond. We took to the streets in Lampegat and discovered a lot of groups who all wear the same outfit during Carnival. One even more chic than the other and some outfits are even seen as a real attraction. “People keep coming who want to take a picture with us. If I had received a euro for every picture, we would have been rich.”
A group of aliens has landed in Eindhoven, they are colleagues and come from Utrecht. Two of these aliens are originally from Brabant. “The rest come from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Spain and England. They wanted to experience carnival. And for our foreign colleagues this is a perfect way to get to know Dutch culture,” says Kim. They bought the overalls from a painting company.
A group dressed as Smurfs, the whole stands out in the crowd of carnival celebrators on the Markt. “That is also the reason we chose this, we are clearly one group,” says Anne. They live together in a student house in Utrecht. “Three of us come from Brabant: from Oss, Eindhoven and Breda. The rest learn to integrate in Brabant with carnival.”
The mother of Bas Santema from Eindhoven made no less than fifteen clown suits from Ronald McDonalds. “We’ve had these packs for about three years now. This year my mother made a few extra packs for the children. Our group is getting bigger and bigger.” Why do they all want to wear the same thing? “Well, you really are a unit like that. We also get a lot of reactions and appreciation from people. That they like it so much and it’s nice to see.”
Together they celebrate carnival almost every day and the suits are also worn daily. “Some of us went out yesterday, you can see that. The longer we wear them, the dirtier they get. But they always turn on.”
Bram (13), Finn (13) and Luuk (12) from Eindhoven are real friends, and they want to show that with their outfit. “We all wear the same thing, so that people see that we are best friends. Why did we choose this suit? Just because it’s fun,” says Bram. Together with their parents they went out to score a nice pekske. And they are proud of it.
“We are imports, so we have to make sure we are one group,” Ido explains. This group of witches comes from IJmuiden and bought the nine suits via Marktplaats. “They were sold by someone in Breda, for a tenner each. Including nose and stick, but we left the latter at home,” explains Esther. The group of friends is in Lampegat for the first time for carnival. “But we have already reserved our room for next year, because we like this.”
Henri and Peter from Valkenswaard bought these special suits years ago in Belgium. You can see them from afar just in front of the Catharinakerk. “We thought we would stand here for a while, but people keep coming who want to take a picture with us. If I had received a euro for every picture, we would have been rich,” says Peter.
“We go to the smallest pubs and actually this big suit is not a problem anywhere. People step aside for you and like it. We get a lot of attention and appreciation.” But what do they actually represent in the suit? “Yes, good question. We always say jokingly that we were fired from Efteling or dropped out of the Droomvlucht. But it has something to do with onions, because the village where they were bought is called Uienrijk during carnival.”
This colorful group from Delft mainly wants to let the sun shine, says Katinka. She is from Serbia and works at TU Delft. Most of her group of friends also come from warmer climes. “We especially want to radiate a little warmth with these suits, because it is quite cold here in the Netherlands. It didn’t take us much effort, we shopped this outfit together during our lunch breaks.”
Omroep Brabant took even more photos in Lampegat during the parade, view them all here.