Today traditional costumes have become a usual festive attire of the Song Celebration’s participants and visitors. Dressing in a traditional costume at the Song Celebration has become a matter of course, a customary accent. This festive attire, which originated from the peasant clothes of the 19th century, is now honourably attributed to the most meaningful national symbols, along with the national anthem and the state flag. Just like oral and intangible - folklore, a traditional costume is a material manifestation of the entire community. It reflects our culture, self-perception and worldview.
The first Song Celebrations had revealed the clothing diversity of Lithuanians living in different ethnographic regions. Therefore, it was essential to research characteristics of traditional costumes, to find the binding elements and maintain the peculiarities of costumes from different regions. The process of reconstruction of the traditional costume was initiated by Antanas Tamošaitis – textile and graphic artist and painter. He worked for five years (1935–1939) trying to comprehend the subtleties of female traditional attire. His thorough work resulted in an album published in 1939. However, the WWII had terminated all the activity including the production process of the traditional costume. Some patchy initiatives in this direction occurred only during the Soviet times. The first conference, dedicated to discuss and find solutions to the problems of the traditional costume, was held in 1969. During Soviet times a traditional costume had become a stage attire intended to massively dress performers’ groups, therefore the provision of costumes was guided by the principle – producing massively, quickly and cheaply.
However, eventually production of traditional costumes took a serious turn already in the independent Lithuanian State (from 1990). The Lithuanian National Culture Centre started the Traditional Costume Reconstruction Programme. The objective of the programme was to restore the stylistics of the traditional clothing of the 19th century. The task seemed nearly impossible. The biggest challenges were to find remaining examples of traditional costumes at the museums’ archives all over the country and to reconstruct a male traditional costume, which archival examples were especially poor. Finally, a long and exhaustive process resulted into the collection of traditional costumes for the first time presented at the 2003 Lithuanian Song Celebration.
The Lithuanian National Culture Centre has consistently continued popularising the traditional costume. It still organises theatrical demonstrations of the collections. Since 2006 the preparation for Song Celebrations has been guided in accordance with the Regular Programme, which included the production of traditional costumes as one of the means of its implementation. In a decade the production has grown to such a scale that craftsmen of traditional costumes have been capable of dressing up over 60 groups, meaning the production of over 500 costumes and their details in one year. In 2014 a new tradition has started – on 6th of July Lithuanian people celebrate the Day of the Traditional Costume. After one year it has given impulse to another tradition – the Traditional Costume Contest. The popularisation of a traditional costume is accelerating and taking new directions.
Keeping the traditions is a beautiful thing to do. Thus, we invite you to wear a traditional costume both at the chanting of the anthem on the 6th of July and celebrating the Lithuanian Song Celebration.
