The Netherlands Open Air Museum houses the largest collection of Dutch regional costumes in the Netherlands and provides a wealth of information on the subject. It administers the National Collection and, since 1949, it has also been responsible for the Queen Wilhelmina Collection, owned by the House of Orange-Nassau Historic Collections Trust.

Next to individual garments and pieces of jewelry, pictures of regional costumes in the form of prints, drawings and paintings, photographs and picture postcards have also been collected since the collection was started. They illustrate by whom, where, when and how the costumes were worn. Pattern drawings, textile samples and the tools used to make bonnets tell us something about the way the costumes were manufactured.

A selection was made from the museum’s collections illustrating as many aspects of regional costumes as possible. See items from the various collections below:

Clothing and jewelry

Paintings and drawings

Prints

Photographs

Picture postcards

Patterns and samples