So if you read last weeks post, this one is awfully predictive: what does the Mennonite woman look like?
It’s all in the Dress
This one piece of clothing has a specific style and is in fact the best way to differentiate between an Amish and Menno woman. There are three main details to look for:
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The falden:
Falden is the Plautdietsch word for the evenly spaced paralleled vertical creases on the skirt portion of the dress. They run from the bottom of the skirt up to the waist band. The closer together they are, the “fancier” the dress. The Sunday dresses usually sport the seriously close creases. You won’t see these on the dress of Miss Amish.
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The Patterns
These are almost always of a floral sort. Much like the falden, the more ornate and flashy the pattern, the cooler the dress. Amish on the other hand stick almost exclusively to the solid patterns.
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The black apron
This thing has two purposes. The plain ones used during the week are to keep the dress clean during your daily choirs and extending the duration of one wear. The formal version is busted out on Sundays much like in the photo below. These clean pristine beauties are known to have a few falden themselves.
The head peices are a whole blog post unto themselves and I will delve into them at another time but for now, this is enough information to be able to pick a female Mennonite out of a crowd.
May 10, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Are you Old Colony? I know you’re writing this for worldly types who couldn’t care less about the difference between the Bergthaler and Chortitzer conferences or even between the Swiss and Russian Mennonites, but it does sound like that’s the “only” way Mennonite women dress, which might confuse a few!
May 10, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Correct! I definitely thought about misleading the users but then I realized that there is no way I can accurately tell the entire Mennonite story so I’ll just tell mine and add a disclaimer. I should probably expand that section but keen eye on being the first to point out what type of Mennonite I am.
May 8, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Yea… I think you are putting all Mennonites in a box here… there are too many different types of Mennonites out there, and you’re just throwing us all into one box. Some of your comments are rude and ill thought. I, being an actual Mennonite, know what I am talking about because I associate with pretty much all the different Mennonite groups in my area. And to say that we ALL do things a certain way is incorrect and offensive. Especially your article about the women not shaving. That is ABSOLUTELY not true. So please do your research before posting incorrect info for the whole world to see.
May 8, 2012 at 4:34 pm
I absolutely agree with you: Disclaimer
August 14, 2012 at 6:11 am
I am also an actual Mennonite, and I was amused to see you acting offended and indignant (a bit typical of a Menno). Had you read the home page, you would have seen that the. Woman who writes this blog already explained that she was describing Mennonite life from her experience in Paraguay.
So please do YOUR research before snapping out on one persons account of mennonite life.
May 22, 2012 at 1:06 pm
This day will go down in history as the first time I’d heard the mention of mennonites. What are they about
June 6, 2012 at 1:14 pm
I wouldn’t call myself “worldly”, but you might. Not sure how I got here, but it is interesting. I’ve never heard of a Bergthaler or a Chortitzer. I’m still not sure what it is either. Don’t put us outsiders in a box either. We look because we are curious. Some of us are believers and have never been heard of Menonites. It’s completely foreign to me, but I understand it. It’s fun to see you bicker like every other denomination. Gods children are not that different from each other.
August 7, 2012 at 12:24 am
Do the Mennonites have the same or similar values as the Amish? What is different?
September 14, 2012 at 10:43 am
Thank you for sharing this information. Although I was raised in a very modern day mennonite family – half of my father’s family was old colony (so I have relatives who still dress/live this way) and I really never really knew about the ‘falden’… all I knew is I would never be caught dead wearing one of those dresses or aprons.
September 14, 2012 at 10:52 am
BTW, I grew up ‘Bergthaler’ and not to offend anyone, but in the community that I grew up in, there were Mennonite Bretheren, Old Colony, Chortizer, Evangalical Mennonite (the whole gammet of different mennonite denominations co-existed in this town) and they all thought they were better than the next… Try and explain all this to a non- mennonite, Irish Catholic spouse and their family, that not all mennonites are the same… just like most mennonites that I know think that Catholics aren’t Christians and that they are all the same too… we are all ignorant people.
March 18, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Of course Catholics aren’t Christians, duh… Catholics are about working their way to heaven without ever knowing if they made it until judgment day, and Christians are about the grace of Christ taking them there with no dependence on their works.
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