* grembiule della scuola Italian school smocks: collars








Italian School Smocks: Collars


Figure 1.--Notice the boy's collar. He is clearly not wearing a regular shirt with his belted smock. The collar may well be attached to the smock. Also notice how long the girl's smock is and the embroidered deigns on her collar.

Italian school children unlike French children generally wore their school smocks with white collars. These collars vaied in different ways. One was the size of the collar. The Italian smock collars were of varying width. Some are quite wide others closer to normal shirt collars. The collars almost always are white, but the varied in style (shape). Various style collars are worn and they vary in size. The classic Italian smock collar is a rounded Peter Pan collar. boh boys and girls wore these collars for many years. Gradually the shape of the collars take on a gender connotation with girls continuing to wear the traditional collar and the boys beginning to wear pointed collars. We also see collars that were not just plain white collars. Some had embrodiery designs and others look eather like lace collars. HBC is not sure just what the collars were. Some appeared to be sewed on or otherwise attached to the smock. I think most of the large white collars were detachable. An Italian reader tells us, "When I attended primary school in the 1950s, the collars were detachable. My collars where attached with metal clip-buttons--bottone automatico. (I don't know the correct English term). [HBC note: I think these refers to snaps.] Earlier the collars were attached with only some cotton string that was removed to wash the smocks." This of course was necessary for the blue smocks because if washed together the white collars would get all blue. In such cases they have to be separated at the back with back buttoning smocks. As most images are front views, there are relatively few images illustrating this. Other Italian smocks are simply normal shirt collars worn folded over the smock. Some appaer to be simialr to the collar on a girls' dress in that that they do not extend all the way around at the back (figure 1).

Prevalence

Italian school children unlike French children generally wore their school smocks with wide white collars. Not all Itlian children wore these collars, but they were very common.

Chronology

We see these white collars being worn extensivly in the 1920s and 30s. We have seen countless examples in the photographic record, especially the 1930s. The popularity of white collars with smocks began to decline in the 1960s, but continue to be worn at some Italian schools.

Colors

While there were a range of variations with the collars Italian children wore with smocks, the colors almost always were white. This provided a fashionable contrast to the commonly black or dark blue school smocks. Not all Italian school smocks were black or dark blue, but this was the most common color.

Variations

These Italian smock collars varied in different ways. We see variations in size, shape, embroidered sesigns, and material. The sizes of the collars varied. One was the size of the collar. The Italian smock collars were of varying width. Some are quite wide while others closer to normal shirt collars. For the most part the collars were larger than normal shirt collars. Oftem they were notablt larger. The collars almost always are white, but the varied in style (shape). Various style collars are worn and they vary in size. The classic Italian smock collar is a rounded Peter Pan collar. boh boys and girls wore these collars for many years. Gradually the shape of the collars take on a gender connotation with girls continuing to wear the traditional collar and the boys beginning to wear pointed collars. We also see collars that were not just plain white collars. Some had embrodiery designs and others look rather like lace collars. These were not very common, but we do see examples in the photographic record.

Fabric

We think that the collars were mostly plain white fabric. We see very few exceptions to this. We note one school where the children wear what look like lace collars, but as far was we can tell that the plain white cotton collars were almost universal. We do not have a huge Italian arcgive, but we have acquired quite a number of images and the vast majority show plain white cotton tie on collars.

Design

HBC is not sure just what the collars were and how they were designed. Some appeared to be sewed on or otherwise attached to the smock. We think that most of the large white collars were detachable. An Italian reader tells us, "When I attended primary school in the 1950s, the collars were detachable. My collars where attached with metal clip-buttons--bottone automatico. (I don't know the correct English term). [HBC note: I think these refers to snaps.] Earlier the collars were attached with only some cotton string that was removed to wash the smocks." This of course was necessary for the blue smocks because if washed together the white collars would get all blue. In such cases they have to be separated at the back with back buttoning smocks. As most images are front views, there are relatively few images illustrating this. Other Italian smocks are worn with normal shirt collars worn folded over the smock. We have seen this by the 1980s, butv does not seem very common. Some appaer to be simialr to the collar on a girls' dress in that that they do not extend all the way around at the back (figure 1).







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Created: February 18, 2002
Last updated: 11:44 AM 1/11/2020