Nationale Feestrok

Shortly after World War II, resistance heroine A.M. (Mies) Boissevain-van Lennep created the Nationale Feestrok, or ‘National Commemorative Skirt’. A feestrok was a patchwork skirt to be worn during national holidays and other important events. As one might imagine, the predominant colours in most of these skirts were red, white, blue and orange.

The concept of the feestrok was derived from the slogans, ‘unity in multiplicity, new from old, construction from destruction’ and ‘unified in uniform’. Women were called upon to make their own skirts and to register them with the Nationaal Instituut (now known as the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement). There was even a song composed in homage to the Nationale Feestrok, which began with the following, ‘Weave the pattern of your life into your skirt’. Some 4000 skirts were registered, but many more than that were actually made between 1945 and 1950. On 2 September 1948, thousands of women took part in a ‘skirt parade’ in Amsterdam, which marked the Golden Jubilee of Queen Wilhelmina’s coronation.

The Rijksmuseum holds several of these festive skirts in its collection, including a set of skirts for mother, daughter and doll, and the feestrok that belonged to Mies Boissevain’s daughter Annemie (NG-1995-8). Mies Boissevain’s own feestrok is housed in the Dutch resistance museum, the Verzetsmuseum. In 2004, the Rijksmuseum acquired a feestrok that is unique in that it also reflects events unrelated to World War II, such as Paul Kruger’s journey to the Netherlands on the war vessel ‘Gelderland’ in 1901. This skirt was made by Ms C.E. de Visser and is tagged with the number 2360, indicating that it was registered at the Nationaal Instituut.