Italian School Smocks: Mothers


Figure 1.--These Itlalian children in 1972-73 wear a wide range of bows, some do not even wear any. Some mothers appeared to have tied fancy bows while others are very plain.

Mothers have different attitudes toward smocks. Some just went along with what the schools required. Other found them a handy way of dressing children for school. The styles appear to have been fairly standard, leaving little possibility for mothers to embellish the smocks are adding stylistic details. One way mothers could add a little flare was in the tieing of the floppy bows which Italian boys often wore with their smocks. The children odten seem to wear the same color, but mother could vary the length of ribbon or bow material as well the way the bow knot was tied. Some boys had very small plain bows while other boys had large floppy bows tied with flare by their mothers. HBC believes that it was the mother who usually tied the bows, not the boys themselves.

Attitudes

Mothers have different attitudes toward smocks. Some just went along with what the schools required. Other found them a handy way of dressing children for school. This was especially important before Itlalian mothers had modern labor saving appliances like washers and when clothes were still quite expensive.

Styling

School smock styles appear to have been fairly standard, leaving little possibility for mothers to embellish the smocks are adding stylistic details. In recent years we nave noted a variety of stlistic details added to school smocks loke embroidery on the smock or white collar. We do not notice this kind of detailing before the 1980s. We note that the main interest of authorities in requiring smocks was uniformity. Mothers on the other hand being mothers often wanted to dress their children more stylishly. A HBC reader writes, "I always thought that the smocks worn by Italian children were basically identical, but the HBC pages show quite a variation at least in the bows. This may well be a reactionj of the mothers to the uniformity in smock styling. This appears to denote the importance given by political authorities on the stylistic uniformity aspect more than the protective role which was of greater concern to the mothers."

Bows

One way mothers could add a little flare was in the tieing of the floppy bows which Italian boys often wore with their smocks. The children often seem to wear the same color, but mother could vary the length of ribbon or bow material as well the way the bow knot was tied. Some boys had very small plain bows while other boys had large floppy bows tied with flare by their mothers. HBC believes that it was the mother who usually tied the bows, not the boys themselves. Some of the bows may be pretied and pinned on the smock. We are not sure about this. A reader in Europe writes, "I think HBC is quite right assuming that it's the mothers that do tie the bows, possibly also as suggested some of these were pre-tied."






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Created: February 19, 2002
Last updated: February 21, 2002