ANALOGUE: Axel - South Zeeland "Wings of Elegance The folds in the traditional costumes women in Axel wear are magnificent, pointing up like wings, or like tail fins on a 1950s American car. The style originally began with small pleats in the cloth around the shoulders but grew higher over time as women keen to outdo their neighbours used packing paper to create ever more ingenious constructions." "Axel’s Isolated Elegance These distinctive traditional outfits −some of the most striking in the Netherlands− are the result of Axel’s centuries-long isolation. The town and the fields around it were surrounded by wide estuaries, which meant that the inhabitants rarely left the island and few visitors came to stay. As Calvinists, they didn’t have much need for contact with the Catholics to the east anyway, and while their neighbours in the west shared the same Protestant faith, they were so poor and lived such frugal lives they might as well have been a world away. The town flourished for a long time, and the nutritious marine clay in the fields guaranteed abundant harvests. Fishermen only had to lower their nets to guarantee a good catch. The town’s location on the West Scheldt river also meant it benefited from passing trade headed for Antwerp and Ghent.