01 OC Mag 01-24

Rebecca Boersma, Ella Poppema, Kylie Kurtz, Amelia Calsbeek and queen Avery Kelch make up
the 2024 Tulip Court. The high school seniors spend the months leading up to the festival getting
to know each other and participating in the Road Show, in which they make public appearances.
designs are worn by the members of the
Queen’s Court. The presiders over the
Tulip Festival wear a different design
of dress every year, their outfits coordinated
from literally head to toe — from
hats to socks and footwear.
Until the completed dresses are unveiled
at the extravaganza in March, the
exact design and what province of Holland
it originated from, remains a mystery
to everyone outside the Tulip Court
and the Queen’s Costume Committee,
the group behind designing and creating
the costumes. The three-person
team, made up of Haverdink, Denise de
Vries and Marlys Hop, spend hundreds
of hours each year developing the design,
sourcing the fabric, and stitching
the dress and accessories.
“One thing that has always been a
priority in Orange City is authenticity,”
Haverdink said. “We want it to be
as close to what it actually would have
been as possible.”
For that reason, the costume committee
conducts extensive research on
the region of Holland the dress originates
from. Sometimes, patterns already
exist, but that is not always the
case. Last year, the team developed the
court’s dresses from the city of Leeuwarden
in northern Holland. They
looked at pictures and ordered samples.
Once they had a cohesive pattern
and sourced all the fabric, they waited
for the tulip court announcement in
November before they could start sewing
with the exact sizing.
The sewing process itself is intricate
and, at times, tedious. Skirt fabrics,
cross-stitching, beadwork, lace and
hats all take hours to create and get
exactly correct. The job is not for the
faint of heart, but Haverdink said piecing
the project together, building a pattern
and a design, and working through
the challenges is a rewarding process.
“I love the challenge of creating
something new that’s never been done
before,” Haverdink said.
She started sewing at 6 years old,
and now has been sewing Dutch costumes
for 14 years.
Haverdink, de Vries and Hop work
several years in advance when it comes
to costumes.
They know the Tulip Court’s 2025
dress costume before 2024’s design has
even been unveiled, keeping the Tulip
Court the best dressed at the festival for
years to come.
We want it to be as close to what it actually would have been as possible.”
— AMANDA HAVERDINK QUEEN’S COMMITTEE MEMBER
SPRING 2024 | OC MAGAZINE 23