Asysta Żywiecka

Nina Krawczyk: We are fascinated by the traditional Żywiec costume, would you tell us about all of its elements and its history?

Dorota Firlej: We should start with the fact that it’s not a folk outfit, nor is it a regional one – it’s the outfit of the Żywiec townspeople, the bourgeoisie. Before World War Two, it was worn only by townspeople who’ve been in Żywiec for generations (whom we call “putosze”). Thankfully, the tradition of cultivating these wonderful customs has survived in our city to this day. We know that the origins of the Żywiec garb go back to the beginning of the 18th century, although that only goes for the men’s outfit. It was a very typical costume for members of craft guilds: very elegant, Polish, a bit inspired by the outfits of the nobility. The ladies’ outfit, which we are presenting today, the so-called “full ceremonial,” which abounds in tulles and embroidery, has its roots in the 19th century. We showcase it in its full, developed form. It consists of multiple elements: skirt, white blouse, corset, cap, occasionally a cape, as well as multiple tulle elements – collar, apron, and shawl known as the “łoktusza.” It’s important to underline that these are not made from lace, but tulle embroidered in the special Żywiec style. The petticoats, worn under the skirts, are also crucial. We don’t wear any sort of crinoline, we have no special undergirding, but 3-4 petticoats worn one on top of the other – which, put together, make up about 12 metres of cotton. What gives the outfit its volume – and the woman the appearance of a small hillock – is the starch we use to treat it. Putting on the outfit is not easy, it takes about an hour and requires adhering to multiple strict rules, which is why you need the assistance of a knowing hand. And then you have all the preparation, the laundering, the ironing, the starching. We should add that married women always had to wear a headcovering. It could be a specially pinned scarf [nicknamed in Polish after a “little rooster”], but our biggest pride has always been the cap. It’s the oldest element of the costume. In our town museum, where I serve as curator, we have dozens of amazing examples, including caps from the 18th century, embroidered with gold thread. We have both reconstructed caps and newly made ones, some of them on exhibition, and some stored away. Initially, I had an ethical quandary about wearing the costumes at all. They should be behind a glass display! But now I’m proud that Żywiec residents safely store in their homes such items as 150-year-old tulle shawls. The townspeople keep them for their loved ones or donate them to the museum, thus sharing these wonders with others, and fully appreciating their heritage. Importantly, several months ago we managed to get the tradition of crafting, dressing, and proudly wearing the Żywiec costume registered with the national [Polish] intangible heritage list. It’s an important obligation; now we’re trying for the global UNESCO list.

N.K.: And what elements of the costume are most valuable? I read that the “łoktusza” shawls would be bequeathed in wills and included in a townsperson’s estate.

D.F.: The costumes were definitely an important part of a personal inventory. A real townswoman had more than one set. You had to have the skirt and scarf in multiple colours, because your outfit depended on the occasion – for holidays that celebrated Mary, blue was the dominant colour, and for those that celebrated Jesus, it was red. For Corpus Christi, you had to wear green. Plus, the ladies had one or two caps. And the shawls, corsets, capes, coral necklaces, rings, shoes. Only the wealthiest could afford all of that. It was the same with the male outfit – for instance only the guild masters had the kontusz sash [decorative belt]. Even today, if someone wanted to buy themselves such a belt, it would cost them more than 10,000 euro. We also have, as a museum, connected with experts who come to Żywiec to assess the fabric and embroidery. That’s how we found out that the caps we have in the museum were wrongly dated as turn-of-the-century, whereas they actually came from the Baroque period. We are always discovering something new about these old customs, always learning.

N.K.: And when and where do you wear the full costume these days?

D.F.: We celebrate the biggest and most important religious and national holidays, as well as various city ceremonies. We recently added a fundraising event for the historic cemetery and Żywiec’s version of the Procession of the Magi. For hundreds of years now we’ve also participated in greeting distinguished guests in the city, such as the queen of Spain Maria Cristina of Bourbon, [interwar Polish president] Ignacy Mościcki, [World War I] general Józef Haller. We also travel outside of Żywiec, for religious processions in Kraków or in [Catholic pilgrimage site] Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, places where people recognize us.

N.K.: What kind of limitations do the outfits put on the wearer?

D.F.: There are many. The costume weighs around 15kg, and you can’t hear anything in the cap. When fully dressed, a Żywiec townswoman can only walk or stand. We can’t sit or kneel, which is why for hundreds of years we’ve had a dispensation from bishops and priests that allows the members of the Asysta not to kneel in church. The men just take off their caps in the appropriate moments. And we never go outside if it’s raining, snowing, or if it’s particularly humid. The reason for this is the starch, which is a very important element of all the tulle parts of the outfit, as well as the petticoats. Moisture, generally, is a huge problem for the women’s costume, which is why for hundreds of years the Żywiec “season” has started with Easter and ended with October’s celebration of Our Lady of the Rosary. If there is some important ceremony in late autumn or winter, we wear the costume only inside. We don’t do any parades or processions then because a Żywiec townswoman shouldn’t have any accessories with her. No umbrellas, no handbags.

N.K.: How is it possible that there is no handbag to go with the Żywiec outfit? There are shoes, handkerchiefs, caps, but there’s no bag or even a pocket.

D.F.: Historically, the townswomen tucked their handkerchiefs behind their skirts, and they held in their hand a rosary or a prayer book. That’s because first and foremost, the ladies prayed. These days, the issue is that we don’t have a place to put our phone or a water bottle. During the processions we participate in, we always have volunteers who will hand us water if need be. But I think these are the aspects of tradition that will be changing the fastest. For instance, during Covid, when the men had their procession, they wore masks. Each different – one man had a mask in a camo pattern, another, a plain one. I wasn’t happy about it at the time. But then I had the thought that when in a hundred years a curator, not unlike myself, will see the photo of that procession, they will immediately know when it was taken. These are signs of the times, a living history of sorts. And that’s interesting, too.

N.K.: And how did it happen that this culture never spread beyond Żywiec? That it’s such a local tradition?

D.F.: Yes, it’s local, even hermetically so. Because the native Żywiec townspeople didn’t want to welcome strangers, the canonical Żywiec costume has survived hundreds of years in unchanged form, resisting the introduction of any contemporary elements. I think, however, that traditions should evolve. If you asked me right now to point out those native Żywiec folks, from families who’d been here for generations, there wouldn’t be many. We do get people who don’t have any roots in Żywiec, who have been here 30 or 40 years and want to be in the association. They have to be taught our ways.
Being included on the [national] intangible heritage list and our efforts to be included on the UNESCO one oblige us to take a different approach, to open up and promote the costume. Today’s photoshoot is a great example of this. We want to boast. Our plan right now is a trip to Madrid to visit Princess Renata Habsburg. The Habsburg family, who at one point took on Polish citizenship, were the last owners of the Żywiec territories. The last of the family, duchess Renata, was born in Żywiec in 1931. When World War Two broke out, all of our lives fell apart, but so did the Habsburgs. After the war and the regime change in Poland they couldn’t come back to Żywiec. This year’s visit to the Spanish court is above all to see duchess Renata, for whom we are preparing a showcase of our costumes and dance. It’ll probably be the last meeting of the duchess with the Żywiec townspeople, because she is over 90 years old. It’s also a reference to an important event in 1907, when the Spanish queen, Maria Cristina Habsburg, a relative of “our” Habsburgs, came to visit Żywiec and was ceremonially greeted by the townspeople. [On July 5th it was announced that Princess Renata Habsburg Lorena de Zulueta died in Spain on June 18th 2024. The ladies from Asysta Żywiecka unfortunately had to change their plans.]

N.K.: Is the outfit also worn for more personal or family celebrations such as weddings, funerals, or christenings?

D.F.: For funerals definitely. Before the war it was, in fact, a must. There was no way any native of Żywiec would show up at a funeral of another craftsman without their costume. These days it’s a bit different. For weddings, the brides would wear whatever was the fashion in the rest of Europe at the time, but the older ladies, the aunts and the grandmothers, would pose for pictures in their traditional costumes. We have these photographs to this day. In the 1920s, a big problem emerged – it turned out that fewer and fewer Żywiec women had the outfit because all the grandmothers and aunts were buried wearing them, their best caps included. Thankfully, in 1923, Żywiec got a teacher’s college for women. It was led by Prof. Charlewski, who so deeply felt the need to help, that he started organising along with his students meetings with the townswomen, during which the students would persuade the older women to stop the practice. We owe a lot to the fact that they were successful. As part of their coursework, the students also conducted the first inventory of the Żywiec costume. Under the watchful eyes of their professors and the townswomen, they carefully wrote down and sketched out every element of the outfit. Compiled by Stanisława Matuszek and her mother Maria, it was published in 1936 under the title “The ornamentation of the Żywiec outfit,” and it’s a fantastic document. It was around this time that the town established the Żywiec museum, where families started donating entire costumes, including the caps. We have original costumes at the museum only thanks to this educational effort by the young teachers. The initiative was very much one of its time, when there it was de rigueur to be fascinated with everything authentic and local – which turned out to be very helpful for us now. Our association was created in 2016, and it has recently been rapidly growing – we now have nearly 90 members. We can’t complain about the interest. But it’s important to note that we mostly get ladies who are a bit older, not young girls. The outfit is beautiful, but you have to have a certain maturity to wear it. I only donned mine when I was 40 years old.

N.K.: I understand that some of the elements of the outfit sometimes need renovation, repair, or exchange, but what if someone wanted a brand new outfit, from scratch? Is that possible, and if so, how does that happen?

D.F.: There are ladies who sew them, you just have to let us know that you’re interested. It will take a while, with the embroidery being particularly time-consuming – but it can all be done. For the full outfit you have to wait about two years. We draw on our historical collection, on the outfits on display at the museum.

N.K.: Do young generations want to introduce any changes to the outfit?

D.F.: We, the older generation, are always talking about this. We shouldn’t be changing our traditions, but sometimes they transform under the influence of the times, of new generations. That’s how it always will be. Let’s say young people start complaining that the outfit is heavy and uncomfortable – I could see, in a couple dozen years, them wearing only certain elements, maybe the łoktusza shawl as an accessory to their everyday outfit, saying “I inherited this from my great-grandmother.” This will depend on the choices of the next generations. Of course we would definitely prefer that the outfit stay just as it is today, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Our role is to educate and preserve the costume. This is a tradition that is carefully cultivated and passed on from one generation to the next. In the past, if mom and grandma wore the outfit, we knew that if there were girls in the household, they’d wear it as well. We’ve of course had our own children in mind, since it is easiest to gradually instil those traditions in those who’ve been around them so much.

N.K.: And what do you hope happens in the future?

D.F.: My wish is to have successors. I’m not yet worried, I believe they will come. The Association’s current situation is very stable, our membership numbers impressive, so we’re not nervous at the moment. When we go out in the outfit, we feel respect from young people. In Żywiec that awareness of our heritage is in the air. It’s always been like this – it’s how it was before the war, it’s how it is now. We all know each other. The Asysta, our group, is a phenomenon of sorts. We all share this passion, and we volunteer in the service of our heritage. Let’s not expect teenagers to be keen on joining. They will come when they are 40, 50 years old, and until they do, we’ll be standing guard, waiting.