Crepe en Kralen (Crepe and Beads)

The first costume displays were created in Dutch museums around 1920. From that period onwards, the collections were also expanded more consciously; Some private individuals also started building costume collections. At the end of the 1960s, a striking new interest in fashion from the past and present grew. Collecting costumes became a true passion for Hans van Emmerik (1952), born and raised in Utrecht. He comes from a family in which, in recent generations, interests were divided between music and fashion.

His maternal grandmother had a children’s clothing workshop in Tolsteeg (Utrecht), which flourished, especially in the 1920s. Unfortunately, not a single piece from the quite large production has been preserved. Her photo albums were her grandson’s first introduction to clothing from years gone by, which prompted him to start looking for original copies. “As a teenager I bought a jabot for 7.50 guilders with my pocket money. Second-hand stores at the time were packed with dresses from the 1930s. It was the time when the first large buildings where families had lived for two hundred years were emptied,” says Van Emmerik in an interview with Georgette Koning (www.independentfashiondaily.com March 2012).

Van Emmerik specializes in fashion from 1900 to 1950, which was worn in the Netherlands by the upper class and wealthy families of The Hague and fashionable Twente textile baronesses who often shopped in Paris.

From December 13, 1980 to March 16, 1981, part of Van Emmerik’s collection was shown in the Centraal Museum.