Figure 1.-- The photo was taken about 1900, It depicts Princess Isabel Maria (born in 1894) and Princess Maria Benedita de Bragança (born in 1896). They were daughters of Miguel Duke de Bragança, the Miguelist claimant to the throne of Portugal from 1866 to 1920, and his second wife Princess Maria Theresa of Löwenstein. They never lived in Portugal yet they are posed wearing traditional Portughuese peasant dresses. This along with the bare feet are seen as national costumes and an effort to show their connection with the motherland.
Here we have as wide range of national dress syles inluding: cowgirl (American), dirdnl (German), hanbok (Korean), huipil (Mexican), kimomno (Japanese), polonaise (Polish), qwuadrille (Caribbean), sari (India), vyshyvanka (Ukrainian), and many others. These are essebntislly folk styles. Masny of the European styles are very similar with common features. The European styles are basically what the peasantry was weating in the 18th and 19th century before the European countries became heavily urbanized. It was peasant styles that became a national look because royalty wore fashionable styles set in Paris and London. For the upper class there was no national look, this could only be found with the peasantry. As early as the late-19th century you see mothers dressing up girls in peasant dressesg as nostlgic look. We even see European royalty wearing peasant styles as a way of identifying with the common proplec and expressing a national commitnment.
