Figure 1.--Here we see a group of German children in 1937. I am not sure if they are all from the same family. Notice the two styles of pinafores the girls are wearing. The third girlls seems to be wearing an apron. The boy is also wearing a pinafore.

While both boys and girls in Germany wore pinafores, the garment was much more common for girls. We see girls wearing a wide variety of stules. We note some girls wearing starched while pinafores like we have seen in America and Britain, somrtimes domes with frills and ruffles. More commonly we note German girls wearing utilitarian pinafores, often done in colors and prints. Many girl's pinafores were done in fairly standard styles. Here the cut and detailing could vary substantially. Variations at the shoulder and neck were the most common variables. We see a greater variety of pinafores in Germany than any other country. These colored and print garments seem to have often been worn around the house and often to school, we think mostly to primary school. Here there were social class and demographic differences. These pinafores seem to have been very common through the World War II era, but declined in popularity after the War.

Created: 11:16 PM 1/6/2006
Last updated: 11:16 PM 1/6/2006