Figure 1.--This class portrait from 1985 shows that many children were still wearing school smocks with white collars and bows. The smocks do not seem to have been required. |
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HBC believes that chronological trends concerning schoolwear in Italy has been similar to that of France. This is in part because children in both countries have not traditionally worn school uniforms and school clothes are thus in large measure a reflection of regular clothing trends. Our historical information is still very limited, but we have begun to collect a few images from different periods. Of course a photograph at a specific school can not be traken to be represenastative of Italy as a whole. We can develop some idea of basic trends as we add more schools to our aarchive. We know boys were commonly wearing school smocks in the 1930s, but we believe that smocks were introduced much earlier. One major exception is school smocks. French boys tended to wear smocks less after World War II (1939-45) and even more so after the 1950s. School smocks in Italy, however, continued to be commonly worn even into the 1970s. While declining in the 1980s and 90s, some Italian children still wear them in the 2000s, although generally younger children in primary school.
A British reader writes, "I found an Italian book titled Heaert about the year in an Italian Primary school. It ws published in 1888 story. There is alot in it and some parts are of interest to HBC readers. The characters in the class are wonderfully described. It is a good read and it a different approach to writing a school story. I do not think a British school story would have been done then in this way."
We notice an image at a small rural school near the French border. It was at Cerlogne. Several of the girls wear smocks that seem to have been made by their mothers. The boys wear sailor suits and other suits. Boys wear both kneepants and long pants. The photograph was taken in 1918, probably while World War I was still in progress.
We see boys mostly wearing suit jackets to school, although this may have varied seasonally. At one school in 1922 we see most boys wearing suit jackets, the old type which buttoned at the collar. We see only a few boys with the newer style that had lapels. Most boys wore long pants, but we see some boys wearing short pants as well. Here we believe social class factors were significant. We see boys wearing boy kneesocks and long stockings. Benito Musollini and his Fascists began their take ober with March on Rome (1924).
We note many boys wearing smocks in school during the 1930s. One class photograph was taken about 1935. All the boys wear similar looking smocks, probably light blue, with white collars and white bows. As all the boys wear the same smocks they are clearly required. There sems to have been no requirement as to what the boys wore with their smocks, although most boys wore short pants.
We notice many primary school boys wearing black or perhaps navy blue smockis in the 1950s. Often they wore them with wide white collars, many mothers added floppy bows--we believe red bows. This convention is so wide spread that we think nation-wide government regulations were involved, but we do not have details on the regulations at this time. Unless it was required we do not think that there would have been such notavle conformity. Most boys seem to wear short pants with their school smocks. Here I think this was just the fashion rather than beuing required by the school, but there may have been some variation from school to school.
Many Italian primary children in the 1960s wore dark school smocks. The boys mostly wore short pants. The girls wore dresses. The smocks commonly were worn with shite collars and small floppy bows. This varied somewhat from school to school. Most children came to school with xshoes, but there were still some children in poorer areas who came barefoot. Often there were some children who did not wear smocks. We are not sure just whu that was. The schools seemed to have tolerated some diversity. Bot all schools required smocks, but it was very common. Apperently it was a matter of individual school policy. We are not sure what role the Minidtyry of Education played. A few boys wore long pnts, but sjhort pants were more common. We do not see a lot pf children wearing knee socks, ast least when the weather was warm. Here there was sime seasonality.
Italian children were still wearing smocks in the 1980s. The school here is a good example (figure 1). The most common color was still blue. We note some children wearing white smocks. Some schools required them, but many schools did not. We believe that they were more common in rural areas than in the cities. Many public schools in the city did not require them. Schools that did rquire smocks still common used smocks with white collars and bows. Unlike earlier years, many boys wore long pants with their smocks.
We note that smocks continue to be worn by Italian school children, mostly younger children. The colors appear o be primarily blue (vrious shades), pink, and white. The boys mostly wear the blue smocks. The girls primarily wear the pink and white smocks, but some wear blue as well. One store offered a rather large assortment of different styles, mostly in sized from 3-7 years. Other stores offered others colors like red and green. Common sizes fir the younger children were 55-75 while styles for older children ranged from 55-95 cm, the girls' smocks in larger sizes than the boy's smocks.
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