For a long time wool and linen products for private consumption were made in the countryside by the people themselves. The mechanisation of spinning and weaving in the 19th century made this increasingly uneconomical.
The "Heimwerk Ostpreußen" (home work East Prussia) founded in 1915 by the “Landfrauenverband" (countrywomen’s association) provided new impetus. In "Heimvolkshochschulen" (home adult education centres) old techniques were taught again.
From 1935 onwards Lyck (today Ełk) located in Masuria, developed into the centre for traditional textiles in East Prussia with its carpet knotting workshop and its weaving school that opened later. The products were popular with the bourgeois public.
Using the idea of a German national community divided into clans and regions, National Socialist organisations developed the "East Prussian dress" as a uniform costume at the Lyck weaving school in 1939/40.
After the end of the war, East Prussian displaced persons organisations took up the idea of a uniform costume again in order to create a uniform visual identity for rallies or folk dance groups.