What is France's traditional costume?

What is France's traditional costume? - Three Jugglers With Smiling Faces

I like to see, and sometimes buy, traditional clothes when traveling in a new country.

Though you seldom see people in poncho and sombrero in Mexico (at least in the Federal District), you can see many people in kimono in Japan, and some people in hanbok in Korea.

What about France ? What is the traditional French costume? Are there places (religious buildings, ceremonies, festivals,...) where I have a reasonable chance to see them?

In all my time in France, I could only see the typical Western modern combination of jean/pants+t-shirt/shirt/polo.



Best Answer

France does not really have one national costume.

There are many regional costumes, although not many or even non is/are still used as daily dress.

In the last half of the 20th century, the 'typical' French male item was a beret.
And it is still used as a cartoon image for the French.

If you are on the French coast you will likely also see a lot of striped shirts. I have never seen them inland and I have seen them on the coast of other European countries, but they do fit with the English 'French guy' image. (Results of image search here.)

It is likely as 'traditional' and 'national' as the poncho for Mexico.




Pictures about "What is France's traditional costume?"

What is France's traditional costume? - Woman in White and Red Dress Sitting on Brown Tree Trunk
What is France's traditional costume? - Woman in Yellow and Blue Dress With Red and Yellow Floral Headdress
What is France's traditional costume? - People Playing Drum





Geography Now! France




More answers regarding what is France's traditional costume?

Answer 2

As your question doesn't specify it has to be in France, you may want to try Little World Museum of Man, which is in near Nagoya, Japan. You can't purchase clothing, but you can wear clothing for a small fee. Look for "Alsace village" within the park. The women's dresses there are very similar to those for Alsace in Nic's answer. Even though the place may sound like a theme park, I was pleasantly surprised at how informative it was.

I don't have a clue as to whether France has national dresses, or mainly has regional dresses. I assume regional dresses are just as good as national dresses for your purposes.

As rather generic advice, rural areas or small towns and former colonies often keep more of a region or country's (or coloniser's) cultural heritage than the big cities. I suspect that the colonies in the Pacific are more likely to keep France's heritage than those in Africa, because the former may have less enmity towards France than the latter.

Answer 3

Some styles can be recognized as French, meaning that you can realistically expect some French people to sometimes wear it, and if anywhere in the world you meet someone wearing that then there is a slightly higher probability that they are French:

enter image description here

But such styles are not typically described as "traditional".

"Traditional" costumes exist, but they differ widely from a region to another, here are a few examples from various regions:

enter image description here (Bretagne)
enter image description here (New Caledonia)
enter image description here (Basque)
enter image description here (Alsace)
(etc)

As you can see, they have very little in common.

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Aleks Magnusson, RODNAE Productions, RODNAE Productions, Klub Boks