The Miner's Parade Coat

Miners worked in almost nothing. Heat underground made clothing a liability, and what a man wore at the coal face was whatever he owned that was already ruined — the subject of a separate piece on this site, and a short one, because there is almost nothing to look at.

Above ground the same trade built one of the most elaborate ceremonial uniforms in Europe: a black tunic with rows of buttons, white breeches, a plumed shako, and a leather apron worn back to front.

The Coat

The Bergkittel is a knee-length black coat, close-fitting, fastened high, with a stand collar and buttons in two or three rows down the front. It is not a working garment and was never pretending to be one. It is the dress of a chartered trade — mining in Saxony and Silesia was administered like a guild, with ranks, examinations and a court — and the coat says so.

The Apron Worn Backwards

The oddest element is a stiff leather apron worn behind rather than in front. Underground it was genuinely useful: a miner sat on it to slide down a shaft ladder or a chute, and it took the wear that would otherwise have taken his trousers and his skin.

On the parade coat it is worn over white breeches, where it can protect nothing. A working object turned into a badge, which is the same move the masonic apron makes, arrived at independently.

A miner sat on the apron to slide down a shaft. On the parade coat it is worn over white breeches, where it can protect nothing at all.

Still Walking

The mines are largely gone and the parades are not. They are held on the feast of Saint Barbara in December, on town anniversaries, and at church services for the trade, and the coats are worn by people who have never been underground.

That is not unusual — most ceremonial dress outlives its function. What is unusual is which half survived. The clothes these men actually worked in have left almost no trace, and the clothes they wore for one afternoon a year are in museums.