Why schoolgirls wore uniforms with aprons in the USSR: explanation

Modern school uniforms most closely resemble a business suit: a jacket, pants or skirt, and a white shirt. But in the USSR, women's uniforms had one element that seems very strange now: an apron.

OBOZ.UA tried to figure out why it was introduced. It turns out that the presence of an apron was justified very seriously.

No matter how hard the Soviet government tried to deny the ideas and pre-revolutionary customs and practices, many of them migrated to the new era. This happened with the school uniform. It was borrowed from tsarist times. In gymnasiums and institutes for noble girls, students wore strict dark-colored dresses with white aprons.

This uniform, in turn, was incredibly similar to the maids' uniforms of the era of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. Back then, this combination of things was considered universal workwear.

However, unified uniforms for schoolchildren were not introduced in the USSR right away. After the October Revolution, school uniforms were abolished as a bourgeois relic. It was returned after the war, in 1948. On the one hand, it was supposed to emphasize discipline and order among students, but on the other hand, strangely enough, it returned to the same bourgeois origins.

As for girls' clothing, the skirt of the uniform dress in the USSR became shorter. And the ceremonial white apron was supplemented by a black one, which was worn every day. At the same time, the boys' clothes contained elements of military uniforms, such as metal buttons and caps. Gymnasium students wore the same uniforms in tsarist times.

Black aprons had to be introduced because the white ones got dirty with ink very quickly. Since ballpoint pens were not yet in mass use, children had to write with ink pens, and various troubles happened to them. Such stains were invisible on the black fabric.

In addition, the uniform was designed to discipline students. Once a week, the white cuffs and collar had to be untucked, washed, and sewn back on, and the apron had to be ironed regularly. It was believed that this was to teach girls to be neat and to do housework.

Modern educators and psychologists criticize this approach. According to them, the presence of aprons, cuffs, and collars in women's uniforms reinforced traditional gender stereotypes about women and limited girls' development.

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