The first known attempt at deliberately expressing a separate Icelandic identity through dress was in 1826 and involved Þórunn Stephensen (1793–1876), the newly-married daughter of Governor Magnús Stephensen (1762–1833). Stephensen père was an advocate of suppressing local styles in favour of Danish fashion; his daughter, however, raised the scheme of “abandoning Danish fashions and reintroducing the old Icelandic dress or something closely resembling it” with a gathering of friends. Although the focus was on women’s dress, the group was mixed: well-connected and influential officials, clerics, and their wives. Board members of the Icelandic Literary Society (Hið Íslenska Bókmenntafélag) were represented in force. Þórunn Stephensen’s new husband, Hannes Stephensen (1799–1856), was not present, but as an active nationalist in the making, he would become a close collaborator of the nationalist leader Jón Sigurðsson.

Other notable presences were the teacher and poet Sveinbjörn Egilsson, accompanying his wife Helga Benediktsdóttur Gröndal (1800–1855), and the poet Bjarni Thorarensen’s wife Hildur Bogadóttir (1799–1882), and the Norwegian historian Rudolf Keyser, then in Iceland to study the language. Keyser had in his possession illustrations of Norwegian folk dress. The group concluded that the traditional headdress was unsuitable and had to be replaced. Keyser, a good draughtsman, was assigned with the task of designing a headdress that could be worn with the traditional women’s outfit – a task described by Ísleifur Einarsson (1765–1836, an honorary royal counsellor who was in attendance accompanying his wife and mother-in-law) as one of “true national importance.” Illness prevented Keyser from carrying this out; no other concrete attempts at the design of a national costume were seen for a generation.

The next development emanated from the Fjölnir group of Copenhagen-based Icelandic nationalist intellectuals. In an article in 1841, Tómas Sæmundsson (1807–1841) pointed to the medievalisms in court and parliamentary costume in England, advocating a historicist turn to the past. This attracted vigorous protest from Jón Sigurðsson, himself a fashionable dresser; but dress (or rather, women’s dress) remained a point of interest among the group. Gísli Thorarensen (1818–1874), whose grandmother as well as paternal and maternal aunts and uncles had attended the meetings of 1826, delivered a paper to the Fjölnir Society on national dress, arguing that, while men would be held up to ridicule by foreigners unless they followed Danish fashion, women, for their part, had a moral duty to uphold Icelandic dress-tradition and educate future generations; hence, traditional headdress should not be abandoned. Although Gísli’s paper was not published until 1892, the Fjölnir group’s influence ensured that the tone of the discussion was set for the coming decades.

Sigurður Guðmundsson picked up this thread a decade later. After a research tour to Iceland in 1856, he wrote a polemic on traditional dress, echoing (more forcefully and critically) the ideas voiced by Gísli. He denounces contemporary dress-habits and exhorts Icelanders to have more respect for their traditions and history; again, the moral imperative is placed on the women. Sigurður went further by describing in practical detail the design and execution of a revived dress-style costume intended for “the higher sort”. His article, running to 53 non-illustrated pages, was published in Jón Sigurðsson’s journal Ný Félagstíðindi the following year. Sigurður’s artistic training, his connections with craftswomen in his family and circle of friends, and his wide-ranging network of correspondents allowed his ideas to be quickly put into practice. During the 1860s the new costume, later known as skautbúningur (coif dress) was popularized all around the island. It is still the official high-ceremonial costume of Iceland and has fused with the nation’s female symbol, the Fjallkona (“Lady of the Mountain”).

In early 1870, an increasingly radical Sigurður and a small all-female group of students declared a “fashion war” against Danish fashions in Reykjavík, and designed a costume aimed at the younger women, for whom skautbúningur was too unwieldy and expensive. In a letter to Jón Sigurðsson, Sigurður described it as “nearly shaped like the ancient kyrtle”, “all looser and lighter and more suitable for dancing”. The costume quickly became known as kyrtill; it, too, is also still part of Iceland’s canon of national dress. When Sigurður died four years later, he left a set of unpublished designs of embroidery patterns for the two costumes as well as detailed writings on their nature-symbolism, which connected them to the identity of the “Island Lady”, Iceland. These patterns were published in 1878 by one of his former students, Guðrún Gísladóttir (1848–1893), and are still in use. Vernacular outfits would in the 20th century be added to the formalized canon of national costumes, but the two costumes Sigurður invented and inspired remain in use to this day.