Dutch men were – 200 years ago – so still fashionable

Everything shines in the showcases of the exhibition Suit Yourself In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There are jackets, gilets and room jackets made of shiny silk and velvet, almost all fully embroidered with floral prints made of glossy wire and decorated with knots full of large shiny stones. They are Dutch men’s clothes from the period 1750 to 1850. A rather flamboyant period in which clothes mainly had to showcase.

The exhibition, or well, with just two showcases it is more a presentation, is the debut of Vanessa Jones, for a year costume curator at the Rijksmuseum. Her predecessor Bianca du Mortier retired in 2023 after 43 years. As British – Jones worked for this at the Leeds Museums and Galleries – she looks at Dutch fashion from a distance.

“I really wanted to show that the Dutch were very creative at the time and did their own thing,” she says. “The Dutch are not known for that at all. In Dutch fashion, most people only think of the sober, black clothing from the seventeenth century.”

While most Europeans looked at Italy, the Dutch gained their inspiration from all over the world.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, men throughout Europe dressed flamboyant, but according to Jones, the Dutch did that in a quirky and inventive way. In the archives of the Rijksmuseum she came across items of clothing that surprised her. Such as a blue jacket in which cardboard is incorporated to make the torso look longer and flatter. And a waistcoat of cotton through which silver wire is woven through which makes it look like. “I have never sincerely seen anything like that before.”

Influence of the VOC

While most Europeans mainly watched Italy at the time, the Dutch gained their inspiration from all over the world. The VOC brought fabrics such as silk, cotton and linen to the Netherlands. In the display case is a waistcoat with flower bleeds inspired by a Palempore: a hand -painted bedspread from India. There are long room coats with obviously copied from Japan kimonom ropes. A bright red jacket is decorated with a design full of Turkish influences. That jacket counts as traditional costumes and was worn in the countryside. Special, because often only the clothing of the urban elite – who could not afford to pay their clothes to the last thread – has been preserved.

It is refreshing to see how slow fashion changed in a hundred years, especially now that trends are often discarded within a few months nowadays. And if fashion changed, it was due to historic turning points such as the French Revolution, which ensured that fashion became a lot more modest. Wealth was still displayed, but now more subtle. No longer with lush floral prints in a rich color palette, but for example with a superfluous second row of knots on a waistcoat. Soldiers in uniform were considered the example of masculinity, which meant more and more military influences in everyday men’s clothes.

Mechanically

Industrialization also had a major influence. When it came up well in the nineteenth century, fabrics were increasingly embroidered or woven. Clothes were no longer exclusively tailor-made by tailors, but from now on hung ready-made in department stores. The range became larger and more accessible.

What is striking is that a lot of clothing in the exhibition has been repaired or entertained. A waistcoat made from Chinese silk on which flowers are painted by hand, it appears to be upcycled: first it was a women’s dress. In a jacket, a side building of another fabric is sewn because the owner has become thicker or because the jacket has been passed on to someone with a larger size. “Very sustainable,” says Jones. “But purely out of necessity. Certainly not for moral or ethical reasons. Textile was so expensive that people have to be careful with it. Even if you were rich, you had less than fifty items of clothing. Rather ten. How Times Have Changed. “

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