Figure 1.--This German boy was photographed by his father painting at home in a smock. The smock does not seem to be well used. It looks to have been taken in the early 1930s. Click on the imge to learn more about this boy.a

We have very little informaion at this time as to just how smocks were used in ermany. As far as we can tell, the smock in Germany was primarily a garment worn at home. Our information, however is still very limited. We have primarily noted younger pre-school boys wearing them at home. We noted a few images of an occasional boy wearing smocks at school before World War I, but they do not appear to have been a common school garment. We note a few images of older boys wearing smocks. One image from the Sudentenland shows a boy in what looks like a dress-up smock. Another image from what looks like the early 30s shows a boy wearing a smock to paint with at home. It might have just been used for painting, but we suspect that he may have worn it for other occassions as well.

Homewear

We have very little informaion at this time as to just how smocks were used in ermany. As far as we can tell, the smock in Germany was primarily a garment worn at home. Our information, however is still very limited.

Pre-school boys

We have primarily noted younger pre-school boys wearing them at home. This appears to have been a utilitarian garment used to kee their clothes clean. Very young children are for ever making messes and few German mothers before World War II (1939-45) had washing machines, so the smock was a useful garment to keep the washing load down. The great majority of German boys we have noted wearing smocks are these younger pre-school boys at home.

Older boys

We note a few images of older boys wearing smocks. Another image from what looks like the early 1930s shows a boy wearing a smock to paint with at home (figure 1). It might have just been used for painting, but we suspect that he may have worn it for other occassions as well. This does not appear to have been a wealthy family and we uspect tht they would not have had such a garmnt just for the occasional times that the boy painted. His smocks does not look well used.

Dress-up Garment

We note that some German Swiss parents used the smock as a dressup garmentg. This does not appear to have commonly been the case in Germany. We have noted one image from the Sudentenland shows a boy in what looks like a dress-up smock. [Harasko, p. 37.] Perhaps it was more common in Czecheslovakia.

School Smocks

We noted a few images of an occasional boy wearing smocks at school before World War I, but they do not appear to have been a common school garment. German boys did not commonly wear school smocks nor did German schools reqwuire smocks. The school smock, however, was not unknown in Germany. Some individual boys in the late 19th and early 20th century did wear smocks to school. Generally these were younger boys. Presumably there were areas of Germany where smocks were more common. Presumably smocks may have been worn to some extent in Alsace-Loraine, the area of France sized by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War during 1870. This was, however, before smocks were required as schoolwear by the French Government and German authorities may have discouraged any fashion that suggested French cultural influence. By the same token after Germany's defeat in World War I (1914-18), fashions such as smocks which were associated with France probably would not have been popular.

Sources

Harasko, Alois. Bilder aus dem Sudetenland (Weltbild Verlag: Augsburg, 1990),

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Bibliographies] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Contributions] [FAQs] [German glossary] [Satellite sites] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: August 3, 2002
Last updated: August 3, 2002