HINDELOOPEN-WHAT!
I didn't realize what I was letting myself in for when a friend recommended that I do a piece about a specific dress style called a “Hindeloopen” skirt.
I gather that with a name like that,I decide it has to be Scandinavian or Germanic I would probably be as long as its name and just as complex with frills and ad-ons.
I had some trouble finding it. In some strange manner I had acquired the idea she had said “Hickenlooper”. After several tries to track it down, and then the always courteous hand of Goog;le.com came to my rescue with their consistently polite and flattering way of asking:.”Do you mean Hindeloopen?”
Of course, I did - and suddenly there it was – Hindeloopen - and far more of it than I had expected to find!
It did refer to a dress style, but that proved to be minor product. In in the 17th Century when you said the word “Hindeloopen” you were referring to some of the finest plain or ;elaborately decorated furniture ever made by Man, to a fantastic array of delicate porcelain with an Oriental flare of pure simplicity and charm, or o any of thousand of household gadgets and do-dads made of wood. Hindeloopen eels were a well-known gastronomic treat,too. Yes, the dresses were there, too....dance frocks, mostly, but they were copied from other Scandinavian styles.'
In those uncertain years when France and England shifted power by the seasons, declined as a seaport .The importation of porcelain disappeared, and the populace found they were to live by eel fishing alone. The Town Hall stills stands and is reasonably intact. It houses displays of furniture, costumes, birth and death records for the area, mementos the seas glorious years, and examples of many of the customs and traditions. It is a museum of a dead town today. The rest of the old town fell apart in 1932 were a part of Hindeloopen culture of more than three hundred years.
When the Zuider Zee ports took over trade with the completion of the eighty million dollar enclosing dam was completed, the towns - including Hindelooper - found themselves to be located on the banks of an inland, quiet, fresh-water lake. With no sea trade, houses fell into dis-repair, whole streets were torn down as remaining citizens looked across the water which no longer provided them with a good living. Exodus. It is noted that even the town physician packed up and left.
Progress had come to The Netherlands in 1932,but not to this port city... not to this historic town. Think about these things the next time you are talking about “progress” in our own time. What may be good for some can be costly for others. I forgot about the copied skirts and dresses. That seems petty when you see how Hindeloopen - one hundred miles northeast of Amsterdam - was stricken and died.
A.L.M. July 28, 2003 [c537wds]
