Romanticism Exhibition

Germania to Her Children

The nationalists Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn were early supporters of a German national costume. The victory over Napoleon sparked a public debate on the dominance of French fashions, and in Frankfurt, Johann Jakob Willemer advocated a “truly German women’s costume”, to be made of “black woollen nuns’ cloth”. However, the dress never caught on with German women, who continued to favour French styles.