Funkce „Trachtu“ v životě obyvatel severní části Bavorského lesa (současný stav)

Especially in the last decade, one can notice an increasing popularity of the festive dress in Bavaria, which claims its allegiance to traditional rural and town clothing in terms of its cut, colours, decorations and particular accessories. The residents of the monitored location – an area of the Bavarian Forest – use the term Tracht for it. Because the phenomenon has drawn only little attention of specialized literature to date, the author relies on her long-time fieldwork that is based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with local people. First, she tries to explain two basic used terms – Tracht and Dirndl, and continues with other garments after that. When describing men´s and women´s dress, she only sketches general and stabilized features because the limited range of this study does not allow her to probe different variants more deeply. These are not only a result of occasions on which the Tracht is worn, but also a consequence of fast changes in fashion as a result of fashion designers´ strategies. The author´s major focus is on the manner in which the Tracht carries out the function of a festive dress and club uniform. While its locally-representative function is nearly zero (except for music bands, the Tracht does not have any attributes to distinguish between inhabitants of particular villages and towns), the Tracht is an unambiguous indicator to define club affiliation. Because the northern part of the Bavarian Forest is a borderland bordering on the Czech Republic, the authors trie to point out mutual influences in terms of clothing. Czech residents do not wear the Tracht, however, they take over only everyday garments (e.g. the men like wearing the popular combination of a chequered shirt and jeans), maybe exceptionally the Murtalerhut, a felt hat with a wide brim, from their Bavarian neighbours. The afore-mentioned subject-matter calls for further continuing studies.