#kociewiacy

Hi there, welcome back! :)

I’d say Kashubian clothing!

We can’t really talk about any specific “regional/folk costumes” from that city itself. The term of regional costume in the ethnology of Poland is associated rather with the rural/countryside clothing (with only a few exceptions like the unique clothing of townspeople from Żywiec or Cieszyn etc.). For example, the popular “Kraków” costume named after the city of Kraków didn’t originate in Kraków - it was created and worn by the peasants living in the large rural regions surrounding the city and Kraków was merely their main administrative centre they associated themselves with.

Anyways - as I don’t want to drift off the topic too much now - let’s look back at a comparative timeline of the 19th century shortly (it’s the timeline when most of the Polish regional clothing in the form we know about them nowadays originated from). At that time townspeople of Gdańsk would wear a rather generic type of 19th-century town clothing inspired largely by the West European fashion trends (example by reenactors). In a sense, nothing special or “regional” we could analyze.

Therefore, we need to focus on the surroundings of the city. Gdańsk’ closest surroundings belong to the ethnocultural region of Kaszuby (Eng. Kashubia) inhabitated by the Kashubians who have their own unique identity and language, and of course their own costumes. I’m pretty sure you might’ve heard about that region before.

Below’s a useful map for you showing approximate cultural borders of Kaszuby. The cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot are included as the region’s easternmost area (urban districts of Tricity marked in the reddish area color). The cultural region of Kashubia doesn’t have “fixed” borders and the map below is only one customary version, divided into main subregions shown in different colors (I think each subregion has its own embroidery style). Historically and culturally speaking the region used to be much larger, stretching far more to the West along the Baltic Sea coast [map’s source: e-kaszuby.pl]:

And below’s an example of the Kashubians’ clothing to illustrate this reply. Those costumes are systemized modern versions, reconstructed by ethnographers after the war on the basis of earlier resources. The original Kashubian clothing went out of use around the mid-19th century [pic’s source]:

To see more of the Kashubian costumes check my tag Kaszuby.

Another cultural region with its own costume can be found in the areas to the south of Gdańsk. I’m showing them below just in case you want to take a peak into the south from the city.

That cultural region is called Kociewie, and the people - Kociewiacy (check their tag here, I haven’t posted much about them yet but there are many nice samples of their embroidery patterns which sometimes appear of their shirts or aprons). They spoke a now-dying-out Kociewie dialect of the Polish language. Below you can see a rough stretch of the area of Kociewie, which I quickly edited for clarity and superimposed over the previous map to give you a good perspective [the Kociewie’s map’s source: cen.gda.pl]:

Kociewie’s eastern borders go along the Vistula River. 

And here’s an example of the clothing of Kociewiacy, also in its reconstructed form [pic’s source]:

To the East from Gdańsk, there’s a region called Żuławy Wiślane which basically covers the Vistula River’s delta area. There are some sparse resources about it but as far as I know there’s sadly no specific costume from that region reconstructed yet - I might cover it here later but I’m not sure if I can manage to find anything reliable online.

Kociewiacy, northern Poland.

Costume of Kociewiacy, northern Poland on a postcard.

Costumes of Kociewiacy, northern Poland.