Photo: ©Helgi Árnason
Sigurður Guðmundsson appears to have been considering the resurrection of the Icelandic women's costume as early as his student years in Copenhagen. When he returned to Iceland for good in 1858, he soon started work on designing a new costume, which he felt was a reflection of the spirit of the costumes that Icelandic women had worn from the early days of Icelandic history.
The skautbúningur came into being in 1858-60. The oldest extant example of a skautbúningur was made in the first half of 1860 by Sigurlaug Gunnarsdóttir, wife of Ólafur Sigurðsson of Ás, Hegranes in north Iceland, who was a relative of Sigurður's. Letters from Ólafur to Sigurður are preserved, in which he requests patterns and more detailed instructions on the sewing of the new costume. These are the principal sources for the history of the design.
(source: http://www.buningurinn.is)
