Belgium's Kersten family is hard at work making costumes and elaborate headpieces for the upcoming Binche carnival – a UNESCO World Heritage event. The family has been designing and making these costumes for more than a century
Rooted in the Middle Ages, the Binche carnival, a UNESCO World Heritage event, is one of Europe's oldest surviving street carnivals and the biggest in Belgium.
The oldest and main participants in the carnival are the up to 1,000 Gilles, who wear medieval costumes in the black, red and yellow colours of the Belgian flag and who parade in the centre of Binche, a town of some 30,000 inhabitants southwest of Brussels near the French border. The costumes include ostrich-feather hats, wooden clogs, bells and wax masks, elements which the Kersten family have been designing and making for five generations.
"This year, we are celebrating the 120th anniversary of the start of the 'Gilles de Binche' costumes production", said 57-year-old Fanny Kersten, who has been making costumes with her father for 33 years.Costumes of "Gilles of Binche" are seen at the workshop of Louis Kersten, 82, artisan and renter of costumes for" Gilles of Binche" before the Binche carnival, a UNESCO World Heritage event, in his workshop in Binche, Belgium January 24, 2023.
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