Wentke

A wentke is a long open coat with a fitted bodice and a full skirt that was worn by the women of Hindeloopen, a coastal town in the northern province of Friesland in the Netherlands, from the seventeenth into the nineteenth century. The garment is made of chintz, or mordant- and resist-dyed cloth produced in the Indian subcontinent, with large floral patterning in red, blue, and ocher on a cream ground. This wentke features a particularly intricate construction: pieces of chintz have been carefully rearranged in a way that obscures the original patterning of the fabric, instead creating a new design that infuses a new sense of symmetry and liveliness. [1] Decorative topstitching further emphasizes the seamlines throughout the garment. The textile, imported from India, was constructed into its present form in the Netherlands, where Dutch-woven trimming was added at the neckline, front opening, and sleeves.

By the seventeenth century, Hindeloopen developed a dress culture distinct from that of the rest of Friesland. [2] The port town’s unique culture developed in connection to its proximity to Amsterdam, the center of the commercial and trade activities of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC). [3] Of the commodities such as sugar, coffee, and textiles imported from various parts of Asia, Indian cotton was one of the most significant and coveted goods sold in the Amsterdam markets. First introduced to Europe by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century, chintz was by no means a new fabric in global trade. The Coromandel coast in the southeastern region of India had long been the center of textile production and had been exporting cotton since 3000 BCE. [4] The earliest documentation of trade in painted and dyed cotton from the Coromandel coast reaches as far back as the fifth century. [5] When the VOC established a monopoly on sea-borne trade in parts of Asia in 1602, Dutch merchants used Indian cotton as a currency for other transactions such as the importation of spices from Indonesia. [6] The merchants would also bring chintz to the Dutch market, where the fabric was highly sought after for its bright colors, floral patterning, and smooth texture. The Dutch taste for Indian chintz grew markedly in the seventeenth century, especially in the province of Friesland where it was used extensively to make furnishings and clothing.

Chintz created for the Dutch market was often monochromatic. Producing chintz was an intricate, labor-intensive process that combined multiple techniques, especially for multicolored chintz such as the one featured in the present wentke. Cotton cloth was first soaked in buffalo milk to prevent the color from bleeding. Artisans then drew designs by hand using bamboo pens called kalams to apply mordants, substances that bind dye to the fabric and make them colorfast. When the painted cloth was immersed in the red dye made from the chay plant native to Southeast Asia, only the areas treated with mordant would retain their color after being rinsed out. Iron mordant reacted with the dye to produce black, while alum mordant produced red. Indigo dye required the opposite approach, where wax was applied to resist the dye everywhere except the areas intended to be blue. Once the dyeing process was complete, the cloth was polished to achieve a glossy surface, which has been preserved in this wentke. Even beyond these outlined steps, the process of creating chintz required multiple rounds of bleaching, dyeing, and rinsing. Through the combination of these techniques, Indian craftspeople created precise designs in brilliant colors for which chintz was prized around the world. [7]

When a wentke first appeared in Hindeloopen inventory records in 1626, it was originally a garment made of dark wool. [8] By 1750, with the increased importation of Indian textiles, wentkes made of vibrant and boldly-patterned chintz started to be worn especially during the summer and festive occasions. [9] Color emerged as an important feature of the wentke, which was most elaborately expressed in the color system for the seven stages of mourning. In the early stages, women would wear black and dark blue. The garment would gradually become lighter in tone, incorporating more blues and whites, and eventually return to red chintz at the end of the mourning period. [10]

The wearing of the wentke had declined significantly by the nineteenth century that the garment was presented as a "traditional dress" at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Since 1912, the garment has survived primarily through the efforts of Aald Hielpen, a choral and dance group dedicated to preserving Hindeloopen’s distinctive cultural traditions. [11]

[Sojeong Lim, 2026]



[1] Melinda Watt. "Coat (Wentke)" in Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800. Ed. Amelia Peck. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013, pp. 200–01, no. 49.

[2] Gieneke Arnolli. "The Mysterious Hindeloopen Chintz Wentke Revealed" in The Narrative Power of Clothes: Proceedings of the ICOM Costume Committee annual meeting. London, June 25–29, 2017, p. 2.

[3] A.M. Lubberhuizen-van Gelder. "Hinderloper ‘wentken’." Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 2, no.4 (1954), p. 88.

[4] Sarah Fee. "Indian Chintz: Cotton, Colour, Desire" in Cloth that Changed the World: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz. Ed. Sarah Fee. Exh. cat., Royal Ontario Museum, 2020, p. 11.

[5] Rosemary Crill. Chintz: Indian Textiles for the West. London, 2008, p. 14.

[6] Gieneke Arnolli. "De chemie van sits" in Sits katoen in bloei: sitsen uit de collective van het Fries Museum. Ed. Gieneke Arnolli. Exh. cat., Fries Museum, 2017, p. 7.

[7] For more information on chintz production, see Crill, Chintz, pp. 11–13 and Fee, Cloth that Changed the World, pp. 6–9.

[8] Arnolli, "The Mysterious Hindeloopen Chintz Wentke Revealed," p.4.

[9] Gieneke Arnolli. Mode in Friesland / Moade yn Fryslân / Fashion in Friesland 1750–1950. Leeuwarden, 2000, p. 33.

[10] See Arnolli, "Hindelooper kleding" in Sits katoen in bloei, pp. 38–40 and Mode in Friesland, pp. 33–34.

[11] Arnolli, "The Mysterious Hindeloopen Chintz Wentke Revealed," p. 9.