Italian School Smocks: Bows


Figure 1.--This Italian class was photographed in 1968-69. They wear the blue smoicks, white white collars, and bows they were once worn by most Italian primary school children. Notice that while the collars are similar, but many of the bows are very different.

Italian boys also commonly wore bows with their school smocks. The bows varies widely. We are not sure if originally there were were regulations governing the bow, either the size, color, or knot style of the bows. Some were large floppy bows other were very small bows with simple ribbons falling straight down. We are less sure about the color. Available images are mostly black and white photographs. We believe some of the bows were red. We are unsure how these bows varied chronologically. We note that at some schools in the 1960s the collars were very uniform, there were substantial differences with the bows. While the color of the bows seem uniform, the sizes and styles of the bows are very different. Apparently it was left up to the mothers as to just how to tie the bows. We are not positive that this was the case earlier, but bit may have well have been.

Chronology

Italian boys also commonly wore bows with their school smocks. The bows varies widely. We have few early images of Itlalian boys wearing school smocks. The images that we have, however, suggest that bows were very common with school smocks through the 1970s. By the 1980s, however, boys were commoinly wearing smocks without bows. We note that at some schools in the 1960s the collars were very uniform, there were substantial differences with the bows. While the color of the bows seem uniform, the sizes and styles of the bows are very different. Apparently it was left up to the mothers as to just how to tie the bows. We are not positive that this was the case earlier, but bit may have well have been.

Regulations

We are not sure if originally there were were regulations governing the bow, either the size, color, or knot style of the bows. Regulations may have been developed by the Government. Individual schools may also have regulatioms. These may have been very specific or left the choice of color and shade to the maother. We do not know if some schools attempted to instruct mothers in how to tie bows or if this was just left up to the mother's disgression.

Style

HBC has little information about the style of the bows worn with school smocks. We have noted a range of different bows from the available images. Some were large floppy bows other were very small bows with simple ribbons falling straight down like the boys here(figure 1). There are a numner of different ways in which bows can be tied to form the knot. Also the size of the bow can be significantly varied depending on the length of ribbon used. We have noted some schools that had no bow knot just two tie-like stands hanging dowm. We have noted one school that had small bow ties, different colors for the boys and girls. We note that boys and girls at any school wear the same style of bow, although the colors are occasionally different.

Color

We are less sure about the color. Available images are mostly black and white photographs. We believe some of the bows were red. Available color images do commonly show red bows as well as various shades of blue. We have notice others colrs as well. While most bows were solid colors, we have also noted a few schools with striped bows. As the striped bows were destinctive, there was more iniformity at these schools than the schools that just designated a color. We are unsure how the color of these bows may have varied chronologically. We do not know if Government regulations ever provided specific details about bow color. One observation, from I believe the 1940s describes school smocks and bows as, "checked smocks with big blue bows for boys and pink bows for girls".

Tieing Bows

HBC assumes that the bows Italian boys wore with their school smocks were primarily tied by their mothers. Younger boys could not possibly have tied them. We are not sure if older boys tied them. Some of the fancily tied bows seem a bit complicated for a boy to tie. A mother would have to spend a lot of time showing a boy how to tie fancy knots and it would seem unlikely that a boy would have been very interested. Some of the paliner nbows possibly could have been tied by the boys. We wonder if some of the bows were pre-tied and just pinned on the smocks. This probably was unlikely in the early 20th cenyury, but perhaps by the 1970s thre were such pre-tied bows.

Boys' Attitudes

HBC has no informatin at this time as to what Italian boys may have thought of their smock bows. This probably varied significantly over time.








HBC






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Created: May 22, 2001
Last updated: August 20, 2003