The history of the handmade apron
Aprons of Today and Long Ago … Were the aprons of yesteryear really made from bags of seeds and flour?
When most of us hear the word apron, we imagine our grandmother in the kitchen wearing an apron and baking, or we envision a middle-aged mother from a 1950s and 1960s television show as June Cleaver from “Leave it. to Beaver “, or Alice, the maid from” The Brady Bunch “with a half apron made of lace and a feminine patterned fabric. The fact is, aprons came around long before television was invented.
The apron came into fashion due to a practical necessity in difficult times and a shortage of money. At the beginning of the 19th century, ordinary people could not afford to have many articles of clothing. They also didn’t have washers and dryers, therefore laundry was not done as often, so people had to wear the same clothes for a couple of days in a row. It was not uncommon for a woman to wear the same dress every day for a week before washing it.
That’s where the apron came from. The purpose of an apron was to cover the dress underneath and protect it from getting dirty. This made washing much easier for women. The apron would be washed every other day and the dress would be washed once a week. This left more time for many other tasks that women had to attend to.
Aprons were not only used by housewives. School teachers, children, shopkeepers, and even secretaries wore different styles of aprons every day over their clothes. The apron had a purpose; to protect the dress and clothes under it.
In the 1920s and 1930s, handmade aprons were made from feed bags. The feed sack is a large bag that farmers would buy that contained their seeds or flour. It was made of a heavy cotton fabric with different floral and plaid patterns. Nothing was wasted back then, so when the feeding bag was empty it was never thrown away. The handmade aprons were made from the feeding bag. It was a sturdy, heavy fabric that was perfect for an apron! Once the feeding bag apron was used and ready to be thrown away, parts of the apron were saved for use in making a quilt. Not an inch of fabric was wasted!
In the 1940s and 1950s, the half apron became popular. Many were made with beautiful prints of different types of cotton fabrics with different colored pockets and bottom edges. The elegant aprons were adorned with lace and rick-rack and were made to look very pretty, just like the ones you see on TV today.
Today, people wear aprons not only for practical use, but also as part of fashion. Today you can find an artist, a gardener, a baker and many more every day people and professionals with aprons.