Mojmír Benža
The Folk Costumes of Slovakia exhibition: Tradition and Inspiration was opened to the public at the end of June this year. Over an exhibition area of 140 m2 it presented only a small selection of the large number of local and regional forms of traditional clothes from the territory of Slovakia. The traditional clothes from the museum collections are supplemented with several reconstructions of traditional clothes from the costume workshop of ÚĽUV that were created contemporarily from documentation material. The exhibited collections present celebrative clothes from the end of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. All the costumes are installed three-dimensionally, i.e. on figurines. Head scarves, bonnets, silver jewels, wedding accessories and feathers are traditionally exhibited in showcases. In addition, the walls of the gallery are used for demonstrations. Fashion clothes inspired by traditional clothing are a specific part of the exhibition. The authors Lea Fekete, Lucia Koreňová, Jana Menkynová, Zuzana Šidlíková and Elena Šišková presented them. These authors were more inspired by the material and technology rather than the colour or decorations of traditional clothing. In a certain way the exhibition reminded us of one old problem that should have already been solved. That is not only how but on what to show traditional clothes. The clothes, fashionable or traditional, are from an artistic point of view three-dimensional objects and that is the way they should always be presented. This is important, especially in the case of traditional clothes where the type of material, method of decoration and colourfulness are not the only matter in the visual experience but also consider its overall design, line and silhouette when looking from all sides.