Traditional Ossola Valley costumes

The traditional costumes of Ossola Valley are a testimony of inestimable value which, through important and constant work focused on their protection and promotion, represent one of the most interesting memories of historic mountain life.
In 1780, Antonio Maria Stagnon, a copper engraver, published five colour plates amazingly rich in shades devoted to the Ossola and its traditional costumes. This work still has great anthropological significance because, as the artist wrote in a letter presenting the work, “the different colours and models reveal the local people’s different characteristics”.
Stagnon dedicated many works to people from the Ossola valleys, in particular from Anzasca Valley and Vigezzo Valley, portraying costumes that were sometimes modest and sometimes sumptuous, depending on the person portrayed in the plates. The most elegant, lavish costume depicted by Stagnon is that of the “siora Peppa” from Craveggia, Vigezzo Valley: a corset tightened at the waist by an exquisite belt with a golden buckle, a decorated jacket, a scarf gathered behind the nape and a black felt hat with a full crown edged with golden ribbon.
The costumes of Vigezzo Valley, the Valley of the Painters, are perhaps the most precious. They were portrayed by local painters during the purest period of portraiture and these splendid examples of female portraits by the best-known Vigezzo artists have survived to the present day.
The humblest costumes come from the valleys of Antrona, Formazza and Anzasca: they are humble because they are the clothes of everyday mountain life, used for work in the fields, so they are inevitably less elegant.

There is also surviving evidence of the costumes worn by Domodossola farmers in the early 19th century: a dark green frock coat, a long light blue skirt with wide pleats, which ends with a red flounce at the bottom, typical fabric shoes and a handkerchief to be tied at the back of the skull.

Black and white photographs and postcards taken at the turn of the 20th century are important evidence of the Ossolan costumes of the time: notably, the Macugnaga costume depicted on an early-20th century postcard is the same costume that the women of Anzasca Valley wear for processions or important events.
One particularly interesting costume comes from Antronapiana, in Antrona Valley, and was used until 1930. Arcum or Awsti was the dialect name for the old dress, which was made from “mezzalana” (a hemp warp and wool weft), which was first fulled and then dyed, according to local tradition, bathing it in water that had previously been used to boil walnut husk.
An important part of the costume of Antronapiana is the “puncetto”, a fine needle lace that the women of this valley still use today to decorate shirts and part of household linen.

The link with traditional costumes began to fade during the 20th century, but today costumes, thanks to numerous folk groups in Ossola Valley, are once more being used and promoted: Ossolan costumes, which are different for every town and group, are often passed down from mothers and grandmothers, strongly contributing to the sense of historical continuity.
As scholar Rina Chiovenda Bensi rightly observes, “An Alpine community’s clothing is a mirror that evokes the boundaries, values and tendencies of the different groups that make up the community. Behind the framework of clothing, we can read the language of the community translated into shapes, colours and fabrics…”.

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Ideal for
Couples
Families with children
Everybody
You will discover
Culture, traditions and folklore
Food & wine and shopping
History and art
Farm life
IAT di Domodossola
Piazza Matteotti (inside the railway station)
28845 Domodossola (VB)
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