On Tuesday, July 2, King Frederik and Queen Mary of Denmark are on the fourth day of their first trip to Greenland as sovereigns. Their twins, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, are with them. For this day in Sisimiut, Greenland’s second largest city, the King and Queen wore anoraks and all the traditional Greenlandic attire.
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King Frederik X and Queen Mary arrive in Sisimiut on the fourth day of their trip to Greenland
King Frederik X, 56, and Queen Mary, 52, have been in Greenland since Saturday. They are on a cruise aboard the royal ship Dannebrog, along the west coast of this vast territory, which is one of the three countries that make up the Kingdom of Denmark. The sovereign and his wife are stopping in the towns and villages along the coast, which they travel from north to south, before ending their trip at the end of the week in Nuuk, the capital.
Read also: King Frederik X visits Greenland for the first time as sovereign
On 2 July 2024, King Frederik and Queen Mary arrived in Sisimiut. The King and Queen are accompanied by two of their four children, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine. The 13-year-old twins accompanied their parents on a visit on Sunday, then stayed on board the Dannebrog on Monday. On Tuesday, they were back on the ground to visit the country’s second city.
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Frederik and Mary wear traditional Greenlandic dress for the first time as sovereigns
To honour the people of Sisimiut, King Frederik and Queen Mary wore traditional dress for the first time since the start of their trip. It is also the first time that Frederik and Mary have been seen in traditional dress as sovereigns. The trip to Greenland is being organised so that the couple can meet the people since the change of throne. Last January, Queen Margrethe abdicated after 52 years of reign, in favour of her son Frederik. Frederik will also soon visit the Faroe Islands, another country that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
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There are mainly two models of traditional outfits, one is designed and worn more in the eastern part and the other in the western part. The outfit worn by Queen Mary corresponds to this second version, where Sisimiut and Nuuk are located. Nuuk is the capital of Greenland with nearly 20,000 inhabitants out of a total of nearly 57,000 inhabitants. Sisimiut, located 320 kilometers north of Nuuk, is the second most populated city in the country with 5,600 inhabitants.
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The traditional dress of the southwest is recognizable by its thick cape of braided beads that covers the shoulders. Under the cape, Queen Mary wears a red anorak without a hood. The end of the sleeves, around the wrists, is made of sealskin. In the east of the country, the collar is white and the cape is much lighter, woven using ribbons and small glass beads.
For the lower part of the costume, the western and eastern parts are more similar. The Queen wears short sealskin trousers with vertical decorations in red leather and embroidery. The ensemble is completed by a pair of long white boots (called kamiks). In East Greenland brown leather was used instead. Queen Mary wore the medal Nersornatewhich is the Order of Merit of Greenland, recognizable by its red and white ribbon representing a tied Greenlandic flag from which hangs a medal representing a bear.
For men, the traditional dress is simpler, as throughout Greenland they simply wear an anorak, often white, and black trousers with boots. King Frederik also wears all of his decorations in medals as well as the Sovereign’s Cross of the Order of Dannebrog around his neck.
