Whilst I absolutely love ultra contemporary fashion styles (more catwalk than red carpet) and both true vintage and modern retro 50s looks, I have a huge passion for Dirndl style: both the traditional outfits with set regulations and the modern fashion takes on the look. Although some might of course say that the Dirndl silhouette isn't a million miles from my favourite 50s full skirt/tight bodice look lol!
It's particularly on my mind right now because just last year I completed a collection I've been working on for over ten years and I finally took my newest acquisition out to photograph last week.
Back in 2011 superdoll created a collection of OOAK dolls called Bavarian Cheese (cheese for the holes hammered out of their suede skirts which bring to mind things like Emmental cheese), comprising four brightly coloured DC sculpts, one monochromatic DC girl and one Venus in a unique sample skin colour dusted with gold.
I was lucky enough to be able to get four of the girls at the time and then a couple of years later another collector kindly offered me first refusal when they sold one of the others.
It stayed like that for quite a few years:
The monochrome girl is Shadow and the Venus with gold shimmer is Glow.
Then left to right Strudel, Stark and Manik.
Last year I finally had the opportunity to add the missing girl, Mark (after the defunct Deutschmark) to my collection.
But these girls are by no means the only ones wearing Dirndls in my collection - I even have a solitary remaining Tiny Kitty wearing a 12" souvenir doll style outfit.
I have a backstory for one of my Kiezkinder BJDs where she is called Liesl and comes from the town of Zwiesel in the Bavarian Forest.
and her friend Joachim sticks to tradition for special events too!
Another of my BJD girls chose Dirndls for herself and her bridesmaid for her wedding:
Even down to the correct Dirndl BH undies!
She also has quite a few others!
I won't bore you with their entire wardrobes - you get the idea!
One of my favourite superdoll Dirndl like outfits is After Midnight (2010).
But my most treasured outfit is the Dirndl that came in 354's gift set - not just because I love it but because my husband purchased it as a surprise birthday gift for me during lockdown.
So far I just can't bring myself to dismantle it!
And this is the only pic I can find of me wearing the original Austrian Sportalm silk Dirndl from which it was made!
If you've managed to read this far and would like to look at any of my favourite real life current Dirndl styles, these are some of my favourite designers.
https://www.lenahoschek.com/en_gb/collection/tradition-ss23
https://www.sportalm.at/tracht/
https://www.lolapaltinger.de/en/atelier-international
https://www.mothwurf.com/weihnachtskollektion-2022/
This next site is a bit hard to look at, her instagram susanne_bisovsky is much easier, but has some of my favourite ever fashion pictures.
https://bisovsky.com/?hideMobileNav=1
These are my pics from some displays she did with Swarovski.