01 OC Mag 01-24
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Rebecca Boersma, Ella Poppema, Kylie Kurtz, Amelia Calsbeek and queen Avery Kelch make up<br />
the 20<strong>24</strong> Tulip Court. The high school seniors spend the months leading up to the festival getting<br />
to know each other and participating in the Road Show, in which they make public appearances.<br />
designs are worn by the members of the<br />
Queen’s Court. The presiders over the<br />
Tulip Festival wear a different design<br />
of dress every year, their outfits coordinated<br />
from literally head to toe — from<br />
hats to socks and footwear.<br />
Until the completed dresses are unveiled<br />
at the extravaganza in March, the<br />
exact design and what province of Holland<br />
it originated from, remains a mystery<br />
to everyone outside the Tulip Court<br />
and the Queen’s Costume Committee,<br />
the group behind designing and creating<br />
the costumes. The three-person<br />
team, made up of Haverdink, Denise de<br />
Vries and Marlys Hop, spend hundreds<br />
of hours each year developing the design,<br />
sourcing the fabric, and stitching<br />
the dress and accessories.<br />
“One thing that has always been a<br />
priority in Orange City is authenticity,”<br />
Haverdink said. “We want it to be<br />
as close to what it actually would have<br />
been as possible.”<br />
For that reason, the costume committee<br />
conducts extensive research on<br />
the region of Holland the dress originates<br />
from. Sometimes, patterns already<br />
exist, but that is not always the<br />
case. Last year, the team developed the<br />
court’s dresses from the city of Leeuwarden<br />
in northern Holland. They<br />
looked at pictures and ordered samples.<br />
Once they had a cohesive pattern<br />
and sourced all the fabric, they waited<br />
for the tulip court announcement in<br />
November before they could start sewing<br />
with the exact sizing.<br />
The sewing process itself is intricate<br />
and, at times, tedious. Skirt fabrics,<br />
cross-stitching, beadwork, lace and<br />
hats all take hours to create and get<br />
exactly correct. The job is not for the<br />
faint of heart, but Haverdink said piecing<br />
the project together, building a pattern<br />
and a design, and working through<br />
the challenges is a rewarding process.<br />
“I love the challenge of creating<br />
something new that’s never been done<br />
before,” Haverdink said.<br />
She started sewing at 6 years old,<br />
and now has been sewing Dutch costumes<br />
for 14 years.<br />
Haverdink, de Vries and Hop work<br />
several years in advance when it comes<br />
to costumes.<br />
They know the Tulip Court’s 2025<br />
dress costume before 20<strong>24</strong>’s design has<br />
even been unveiled, keeping the Tulip<br />
Court the best dressed at the festival for<br />
years to come. <br />
We want it to be as close to what it actually would have been as possible.”<br />
— AMANDA HAVERDINK QUEEN’S COMMITTEE MEMBER<br />
SPRING 20<strong>24</strong> | <strong>OC</strong> MAGAZINE 23