Rund Um The Bollenhut, a symbolic Black Forest hat with pompoms, is still made by hand<

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More than two centuries after its appearance, the Bollenhut continues to symbolize the Black Forest and all of Germany all over the world. However, this hat with red or black pompoms is only really worn in three villages. Two women still make it, by hand.

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— Aleshka Putin Sun Jun 13 01:57:56 +0000 2021

By Noémie Gaschy

Gabriele Aberle is one of the last two women to make the Bollenhut, at her home in Gutach, in her typical Black Forest house, over 400 years old. Barely crossed the threshold of the door, the first hats with pompoms, sometimes red, sometimes black appear, hung on the wall. Sitting at the table in the same room, Gabriele Aberle is busy, her scissors in hand: she cuts, adjusts and recuts until she obtains 14 balls, some rather round, others oval, which she then sews on a hat. of straw coated with plaster to support the weight of the ornament. She uses around two kilograms of sheep's wool for a Bollenhut and devotes a week's work to each piece. The former bank employee knows how to place the 14 pompoms exactly where they are needed, to the nearest millimetre.

His family saved the Bollenhut from extinction

Knowledge and know-how inherited from his mother and grandmother, who were also attached to the tradition of this hat with pompoms and which enabled him to survive. "The last lady who made the Bollenhut in Gutach died taking her science with her, in her coffin. So there was no one left to make it, anywhere. My grandfather went to the vows ceremony in Fribourg, in 1950; there, we knew that the hat could be a great advertisement for the region, so we asked him to find someone to take over the production. He went to my grandmother's house and gave her told to do it", says Gabriele Aberle, with a smile on her face, to detail her story. She is therefore the third generation of the family to save this heritage, she whose parents are not peasants whereas the costume and the Bollenhut could originally only be worn on the farms, on Sundays. But things had already changed when Gabriele Aberle was a child. She grew up with the hat. "The girls have a simple headdress on their heads until the confirmation, she explains. Then, from that day, they wear the hat with red pompoms until their wedding day, when they have to go black hat".

The Bollenhut is only worn in three villages

A custom that only exists in three villages in the Kinzig valley: Gutach, Kirnbach and Hornberg-Reichenbach, Protestant villages. However, the Bollenhut has become the symbol of the Black Forest and even of all of Germany, in particular thanks to the film "Schwarzwaldmädel", broadcast beyond the borders of the country in 1952 and where the main actress was dressed in the costume with this hat. She embodied the ideal world in the Black Forest. This exposure to the eyes of the world still ensures the good health of the Bollenhut today, used at all costs in advertisements or in art, but Gabriele Aberle and the guarantors of tradition are fighting against certain abuses. For example, she generally agrees to make a headgear only for the girls or ladies of the three villages historically linked to the Bollenhut, provided that they have the costume that corresponds to it. The omnipresence of the Bollenhut has, according to her, negative consequences on other traditional costumes: "in art, for photos or paintings, for example, the hat is associated with other costumes, without respecting reality and without know what costume it is. It's a shame because there's such diversity, over 120 costumes, and they're all beautiful."