Figure 1.--San Nicola da Crissa is a little town in the Calabria region, at an elevation of about 1,700 feet. Nowadays there are about 1,100 inhabitants. This photograph was taken in 1950. At the time there were more than 4,200 inhabitants. Most of the people emigrated in the 1960s-1970s, but other ones also in the more recent decades. The people mainly subsist on farming. Once all the fields belonged to two wealthy families and all the other families were sharecroppers. The photo depicts two young girls on the way to school. Both have scarfs on their heads. We see many girls wearing shawls in Italy, but with the Italian Economic Miracle of the 1950s, his rapidly disappeared even in the south. Clearly both girls were from working class families, but we can see a little difference in the economic level. The girl on the right has a school bag and, above all, she wears shoes and socks. The other girl is carrying the books wrapped in a cloth and is barefoot, that usually meant she didn't own any footwear.

Italian girls like girls throughout Europe mostly wore dresses or other skirted outfits like blouses and skirts. Italy set fashion trends during the Renaissance, but became a European backwater until the 20th century. We notice the same basic styles as worn in other countries. It is virtually impossible to identify countries in photographs of girls wearing dresses in Europe. Ethnicity and background provide clues, but rarely the dresses. The primary exception is when some peasant/folk styles are worn. Some girls wore pinafores over their dresses, but this began to decline after the early-20th century. It may have been less common in Italy because smocks were so common in schools. The prevalence of dresses did not change to an extent until after World War II. Italy was one of the countries where smocks were widely worn for school. Thus school images are not as useful as many another countries in following chronological dress styles. Both boys and girls wore them, but they were more common for girls and older girls wore them. While they were commonly worn for school, we see very few girls wearing smocks outside of school. We begin to notice other girls' garments first in institutional settings, especially the summer camps that became common during fascist era of the 1920 and 30s. One of those garments was rompers. We notice girls wearing uniform rompers at a Fascist summer camp during the 1930s. Unlike France, both boys and girls wore rompers in Italy, but we see them mostly in institutional settings. One garment was especially important in Europe--the shawl. We notice this in many European countries, especially among the poorer segment of the population.

Created: 9:46 AM 8/30/2023
Last updated: 9:47 AM 8/30/2023