Coordinating a fashion show in Oak Harbor can’t be much different than putting on a show in the fashion capitals of Paris and Milan. Organizers must deal with choosing the right music, have an accurate script and make sure each outfit is matched with just the right accessories.

The fashion show in Oak Harbor Sunday, April 25, will have wool, wooden shoes and lace instead of the silk and stilettos of Fashion Week in Rome.

But the backstage arrangements are as frenzied as those in New York.

“We want to show people accurate outfits,” Jan Ellis said Friday afternoon at Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce. Ellis, who is Dutch through and through, will be narrating the fashion show. She took time from her busy tax preparation schedule to help Sande Mulkey with details.

The outfits come from four provinces of Holland — Frisia, Walchren, Volendam, Middleburg — and each has its own flair. Ellis seems to know everything about traditional Dutch dress.

“This skirt is Volendam but the top isn’t,” Ellis said as she replaced the inaccurate item with the correct blouse and apron.

Many of the outfits were given to the chamber of commerce by local families who had outgrown the costumes or the allure of dressing Dutch.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Ellis said almost all of Oak Harbor dressed up for Holland Happening after a group of stalwart Dutch die-hards dressed up and went to businesses taking costume orders.

“Banks and insurance companies ordered many outfits from us and every employee wore them,” Ellis remembered.

Some Dutch families purchased costumes on trips to Holland, others had costumes made from patterns found in Holland, Mich.

While some authentic wool costumes were given to the chamber, others belong to Oak Harbor families. Ellis and Mulkey worked to figure out who has what and who will be in town.

The costumes are a whirl of patterns, floral prints, stripes, plaids and checks against somber black. Every woman’s outfit has at least one lace cap, maybe several. Men’s suits are black with striking vests, waistcoats and dickies.

All the costumes are Sunday best. Oak Harbor seamstress Carol Van Zanden made many of them including one for Pastor Arvin Wester of First Reformed Church. It’s a replica of a Reformed minister’s suit.

“Pastor Wester will be here for the Dutch dinner Friday night,” Ellis said. She’s heard he wants to reclaim his suit.

Ellis will be resplendent in her blue-and-black brocade Frisian dress with its lace accessories. Her most striking accessory will be a solid gold headdress she inherited from her grandmother.

“You wore gold to show your wealth,” Ellis said. Gold, buttons, headdresses and other decorations along with semiprecious stones were a part of many Sunday best outfits.

According to Ellis, people wore gold often as insurance.

“If a dike broke, and those often did,” she said, “people couldn’t carry their house, business or farm but they could wear their money away with them.”

Because gold was expensive, the Dutch handed those adornments to the oldest daughter and on down the line.

Ellis’ headdress has the date 1861 engraved in it so it may be her great-grandmother’s.

While Ellis insists on the costumes being true to their region, her costume won’t be totally accurate.

Frisians wore leather shoes with silver buckles, “Like the Pilgrims,” Ellis said. But over the years, Ellis has found it easier not to wear the leather shoes.

“If I don’t wear klompen, all I hear is ‘But where are your wooden shoes?’,” Ellis said.

On the catwalk

The show takes center stage on Pioneer Way Sunday, April 25, at 1 p.m.