Photograph showing Mrs. Boissevain and a Feestrok, January 1949 (TRC 2018.3323).The TRC recently received a photograph that was taken in New York in January 1949 and shows Mrs. Adrienne M. (Mies) Boissevain - van Lennep (1896-1965). She was the driving force behind the campaign, set up after the war, for Dutch women to make and wear patchwork skirts that symbolised the liberation of the country from German occupation. In January 1949 she embarked on a lecture tour in the USA. In the photograph she proudly shows an example of a Feestrok.

One of these 'Feestrokken' is housed in the TRC collection (TRC 2011.0001a), and in the past the TRC has paid ample attention to the Feestrok and its symbolic meaning. The British journal Selvedge published an article on the subject in June 2018 (download here). The photograph adds another dimension to the visual story of the Feestrok as presented by the TRC. See also an article in TRC Needles (download here).

The back of the photograph carries the following text:

"Dutch woman to lecture for world peace. New York: Mrs. Adrienne M. Boissevain, founder of the National Skirt, a women's organization in Holland whose members wear patchwork skirts as symbol of unity and world harmony, arrives aboard liner Westerdam, Jan. 17. Her home in Amsterdam served as underground headquarters during German occupation. She is in U.S. for lecture tour, as part of crusade for world peace. She lost her husband at Buchenwald."