A Smock Story
Part of making clothes means thinking about pieces in a historical context and using what's come before to design something new.
One of our more popular items, the Smock, does just this.
Smocks began as women's undergarments in the Middle Ages and slowly transformed into clothing worn by peasants in Europe on the outside of the body to protect clothing.
Men and women alike wore smocks as work-wear. Farmers, shepherds, cooks, artists, fishers, sculptors, anyone with a messy job found the garment essential.
By the mid-19th century, the working class began to industrialize, and wearing loose clothing wasn't ideal for machinists and other factory-oriented jobs. As smocks lost popularity among the working class, they gained popularity among the middle classes, in more embellished forms, often worn by women for housework.
Inspiration tends to pop out in the most unexpected places. While scouring the internet for historical images of those who wore smocks before us, I stumbled upon this image:
I was struck. I'd never heard of the artist, Gluck, born Hannah Gluck, at the end of the 19th century. I imagined her, a proper artist, mostly unknown, in her smock, painting images of whatever pleased her. So brave, to live the way she did in 1920 or 1940 or in any decade. Is it wrong to think that clothes can propel us toward bravery and help us embrace whatever it is we love most about ourselves? I don't think so.
Our Smock is tried and true, modeled on a tradition of purposeful clothing. Just as with Gluck, or your plowman ancestor in the lowlands of Scotland, or a woman with your cheekbones sweeping a floor somewhere one hundred years ago, you are what makes your clothing exceptional. And your clothing is what you pick to wear while doing whatever it is you love to do.
You can trust these things about STATE's smocks:
1. Each is made with zero waste.
2. Each is sewn in the U.S. by a woman we know and is paid a fair and decent wage.
3. Each is one-of-a-kind.
