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We have only limited information on the countries in which pinafores were worn to school. We have noted large numbers of images from America, Australia, Canada, England, France, Italy, New Zealand, and Scotland showing girls wearing pinafores to school in the late 19th and early 20th century. We believe that they were common in may other countries as well, but have no information on other countries at this time. We have even less information about boys wearing pinafores to school. The few images we have are from England and are all rural village schools. There are so few images involved that we are not sure if this was only a fashion at village schools or if pinafores werea lso worn in city schools. Most show pinafores and are smocks being worn by very young boys. A few images appaer to show a few older boys wearing them as well.
American girls commonly wore pinafores during the late 19th and early 20th century. Asin England, they were often worn to school to protect the girls' clothing
Australia was a British colony and pinafores were worn by Australian girls much as they were worn in England.
We have very little information on Canada. Readers of Ann of Green Gables, however, will be familiar with the fact that pinafores appear to have been commonly worn by Canadian girls.
We have a early 20th century photograph of Dominican school girls wearing mostly light-colored dresses. They do not appear to be wearing pinafores. We do not knoiw to what extenbt pinafores were worn in Latin American countries. We have generally in HBC very limited information on Latin America. Hopefully our Latin American readers will provide us some insights here.
Numerous English photographs show girls wearing pinafores to school in the late 19th and early 20th century. Large numbers of images English children lined up in front of schools with all the girls wearing pinafores. This seems particularly common in the late 19th century, althougjh we do not yet have a precise chronology. Other images show only some of the girls wearing pinafores. Most commonly they were white pinafores ith frills at the shoulders, but we have also noted pinafores with patterns as well as colored pinafores.
We have little information about boys wearing pinafores to school. The few images we have are from England and are all rural village schools. There are so few images involved that we are not sure if this was only a fashion at village schools or if pinafores were also worn in city schools. Most show pinafores and are smocks being worn by very young boys. A few images appaer to show a few older boys wearing them as well.
French girls often wore inafores to school, over dresses or even smocks. We have, however, relatively limited information at this time.
We have limited information here. We believe German girls did ear pinafores to school, but we are not sure about how common this was. We do not believe that German boys wore pinafore to school, but do not that some German boys wore pinfores at home. They were very basic styles, not the fancier styles will frills that girls wear. The reason German irls wore them was the same as in other countries, to protect clothes agains dirt. In Germany there have never been school uniform like in England. Pinafores were, however, very popular for girls to wear at school. A German reader tells us that some especially prestigious schools has particularly trendy pinafores. Other schools had rules about fancy pinafores and insisted on plain pinafores to discourage vanity on the part of the girls. Conventions seemed to have vaied widely in Germany and our information is still uite limited. We notice some German images with girls wearing plain pinafores and some with bo pinaforeas at all.
We believe that Italian girls commonly wore pinafores to school. We have, however, very limited information at this time.
Here we have only limited information. Pinafors were not very common at Japanese schools, but we do notice them. We see colored pinafores being worn at some Japanese schools. So far we have only noticed them being worn by kindergarten children for lunch or activities like art. We are not sure what the Japanese term is for uniform.
New Zealand was a British colony and pinafores were worn by Australian girls much as they were worn in England.
We believe that Scottish girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries commonly wore pinafores to school, just like English girls. At this time we know of no significant differences between English and Cottish pinafores or conventions concerning their wear. We have noted a 19th century painting that could be a rural Scottish school, but weare not sure.
We are not sure to what extent Swiss girls wore pinafores to school and if there were any differences in the French and German communities. We do not that many children wore school smocks and one of the styles was a pinafore-smock. These were worn by both boys and girls.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1840s]
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[The 1940s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
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[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
Related Style Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
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[Short pants suits]
[Socks]
[Eton suits]
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[Blazer]
[School sandals]
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