For many months, the young Berlin photographer Gregor Hohenberg travelled the German countryside with his camera, from west to east, from Bavaria to the islands of the North Sea. Everywhere he went, he met enthusiasts, often in the local "Trachtenverein" (regional costume association), who carefully preserve these clothes and accessories, keeping them in pristine condition. Because they view them as what they truly are: invaluable cultural artifacts whose colorful splendor reminds one of Spain, Mexico, or even Asia--a couture of the people in which traditional craft techniques have survived.

Traditional clothing is essentially haute couture. Made with high quality fabrics and elaborate workmanship, it embodies cultural heritage and style. Encompassing a surprising variety of garments, it represents premium handcraft, an awareness of tradition, a sense of belonging, and an affinity to one's homeland. At the same time, folkloric clothing is inspiring some of today and tomorrow's most ambitious and radical fashion designers. In 'Traditional Couture,' photographer Gregor Hohenberg succeeds in building a visual bridge between the outmoded and the avant-garde in German folkloric fashion. He portrays the individuals, young and old alike, who wear traditional attire in all the regions of his homeland, as well as their surroundings.

This two-volume set presents information and images of the varied clothing and textiles of cultures around the world, allowing readers to better appreciate the richness and diversity of human culture and history. The contributors to Encyclopedia of National Dress: Traditional Clothing around the World examine clothing that is symbolic of the people who live in regions all over the world, providing a historical and geographic perspective that illustrates how people dress and explains the reasons behind the material, design, and style. The encyclopedia features a preface and introduction to its contents. Each entry in the encyclopedia includes a short historical and geographical background for the topic before discussing the clothing of people in that country or region of the world. This work will be of great interest to high school students researching fashion, fashion history, or history as well as to undergraduate students and general readers interested in anthropology, textiles, fashion, ethnology, history, or ethnic dress.

Concert halls all over the world feature mostly the works of German and Austrian composers as their standard repertoire: composers like the three "Bs" of classical music, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, all of whom are German. Over the past three centuries, many supporters of German music have even nurtured the notion that the German-speaking world possesses a peculiar strength in the cultivation of music. This book brings together seventeen contributors from the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, history, and German literature to explore these questions: how music came to be associated with German identity, when and how Germans came to be regarded as the "people of music," and how music came to be designated "the most German of arts." Unlike previous volumes on this topic, many of which focused primarily on Wagner and Nazism, the essays here are wide-ranging and comprehensive, examining philosophy, literature, politics, and social currents as well as the creation and performance of folk music, art music, church music, jazz, rock, and pop. The result is a striking volume, adeptly addressing the complexity and variety of ways in which music insinuated itself into the German national imagination and how it has continued to play a central role in the shaping of a German identity. Contributors to this volume: Celia Applegate Doris L. Bergen Philip Bohlman Joy Haslam Calico Bruce Campbell John Daverio Thomas S. Grey Jost Hermand Michael H. Kater Gesa Kordes Edward Larkey Bruno Nettl Uta G. Poiger Pamela Potter Albrecht Riethmüller Bernd Sponheuer Hans Rudolf Vaget