Elverum, a place I had heard of, but never been to and moreover, I was not even quite sure of where it exactly was. This says of course more about my geographical knowledge than about Elverum, but having lived 1500 km farther north for almost a lifetime, southern Norway could as well be in another country. In June I went on board of an airplane, for the first time after many months and landed in a weirdly empty Oslo airport. I took the train to Hamar, the next to Elverum and walked to Glomdalsmuseet, the museum of the Glomma valley.

If you ever happen to be in the southeast of Norway, I absolutely recommend a visit to Glomdalsmuseet. All the exhibitions are centred around the history and lives of the people inhabiting this area. Norwegian military history and the history of German conquest and occupation during WWII, Latjo Drom – a large exhibition of the lives of the Romani minority in Norway and the persecution by the state, brides dresses and furniture styles of different times, and a complete, old-fashioned pharmacy, which I simply loved, plus a large exhibition about the work life of the country side doctors and midwives. And all of this was just indoors: outdoors is the third largest open-air museum in Norway.

But I was not here to visit the exhibitions, I was invited by Dr. Bjørn Sverre Hol Haugen to study clothing in the archive, together with folk costume tailor Anny Strand. In spring this year, I had received the folk-art grant from the Norwegian Cultural Fund, and the aim of the project was to study and trying to reconstruct some of the bindings found in textiles woven in Norwich. At Glomdalsmuseet in Elverum there are preserved many clothing items handsewn in fabrics from Norwich, skirts, waistcoats, capes, bonnets, purses and jackets in a multitude of binding techniques.

Even after several centuries and heavy wear and tear, the textiles in their cardboard boxes are breathtaking. The colours are bright and shiny, and I struggle to comprehend how the weavers in Norwich managed to weave those very large patterns on hand looms. On the other hand, it is very easy to understand why Norwegians of the 18. century would pay large sums to acquire a Norwich fabric. The brightly coloured English worsted cloth even became smuggler goods, and the precious fabrics were used again and again in smaller and smaller bits, as part of another garment or as bonnets and purses. In a time where ordinary people wore brown, grey and shades of dirty white, coloured textiles were seen from afar and showed off the owner’s wealth and social rank. The lustrous English fabrics became so popular among rich farmers and other wealthy people that the Danish king (yes, Norway was under Danish rule from 1397 -1814) declared another sumptuary law in 1783, forbidding farmers to buy imported fabrics. The official reason was of course the economy, farmers were supposed to weave their own cloth with Norwegian wool, flax, and hemp. The underlying reason was another: what would the world come to if you no longer could discern noblemen and state servants from simple commoners?

 Source: “Virkningsfulle tekstiler – i østnorske bønders draktpraksiser på 1700-tallet”, Bjørn Sverre Hol Haugen, 2014