The average age is increasing, as people live longer and have fewer children. Lifestyles are changing as the Swiss adapt to new demands.
Demographic Trends
Religious belief has declined in recent years, but the
religious landscape has diversified.
Switzerland has four unevenly distributed languages and a wealth of dialects.
Language distribution Swiss German Other dialects Swiss nationals living abroad are sometimes referred to as
the Fifth Switzerland.They live in countries ranging from A for Afghanistan to Z for Zimbabwe.
The largest Swiss community abroad is in France, where more than 170,000 Swiss nationals are registered. Some 700,000 Swiss live abroad.
National Costumes
Near the end of the 18th century a new interest in the Alps and the pastoral lifestyles and cultures of the people living on them led to the development of tourism in Switzerland. Curious travelers wanted to take back cheap landscape paintings as souvenirs and with that grew a blooming business in hand-colored engravings done in the workshops of such minor Bernese artists as Sigmund Freudenberger, Johann Ludwig Aberli und Gabriel Lory who enhanced these landscapes with figures in traditional costumes.
To heighten the decorative effect of his engravings, Freudenberger did not portray the costumes as they really were - plain, undyed linen and wool. Instead he brightened them up by adding colors to his representations.
For his part, Lory enlarged the traditional lace bonnets portrayed in his work so that they became spectacular headwear. In contrast to these artistic adjustments, old photographs show that the costumes worn by women at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century were generally the style of the times.
In 1914, the Bernese association devoted to the protection of regional traditions published a pamphlet criticizing what it described as the nonsense surrounding the styles in national costumes. In the 1920s, the artistic committee of the Swiss Association called on artists throughout the country to portray people in traditional costumes. Of the drawings submitted, 48 were reproduced in color and printed as postcards on the occasion of a National day for Traditional Costumes (Trachtentag) in 1925. A jury of the Swiss Association for the Protection of Traditional Costumes and Folk Music judged the costumes and published its report in a brochure.
The Bernese artist and heraldist Rudolf Münger copied figures from ancient chronicles and from drawings of the Swiss masters and in this way acquired considerable expertise in the characteristics of traditional costumes. On the basis of early drawings, national costumes were recreated in the 1920s.
Since that time, the Swiss Association for Traditional Costumes has set the standards for these costumes and their quality.
