Figure 1.--Best in 1963 offered play smocks for boys and girls to age 8 years. They were similar with pockets at the hem to hold art supplies. The boy's smock does not have a collar and buttons in the front. The girl's smock has a collar and buttons in the back. The sleeve ciffs were also done differently.

We do not see American boys wearing smocks after World War II. They are virtually absent in the photographic record. There is one excption. And that was art. Some schools, especially private schools may have had smocks for art schools. The idea of course was to protect clothes from all the paints and art materials. Some mothers may have even purchased smocks for home art activities. We don't have any photographic evidence of this, but we do see some offerings in mail order catalogs. An example is the 1963 Fall Winter Best & Co catalog. A reader writes, "I wore a smock like the one offered in the Best catalog. I had it from age 4 or 5 years utill I was 7 or 8 years old. I think a friend of my mother gave it to her for me as a present because I liked to paint. She would set me up in a room we called the play room. The smock kept my clothes clean. I think by the time I was 7 years old I had outgrown it. I was young enough and my mother always said it was to protect my clothes that I did not care about wearing a smock. It helped that we wore smocks in kindergarten and first grade when we painted too. Those smocks were more like shirts that buttoned down the front. It was blue or grayish blue with white or yellow on the bottom pockets trimmed with red. It sounds just like the Best smocks. I don't remember about a monogram. "

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Created: 10:03 PM 3/2/2018
Last updated: 2:09 PM 3/4/2018