Overlooked, familiar, homely… These are the words traditionally associated with the apron, a detachable, workaday garment that has historically functioned “almost like an invisibility cloak.” So said Carol Tulloch, a professor of dress, diaspora and transnationalism at Chelsea College of Arts, in a telephone interview with CNN.
Just don’t tell that to Jeremy Allen White’s character Carmy Berzatto in hit TV drama “The Bear” whose tightly-tied blue Bragard apron (a replica of those worn in chic Napa Valley eatery The French Laundry) only enhances his main character energy as the show’s fourth season premieres this week.
Tulloch, alongside fellow London-based academic Judith Clark, a professor of fashion and museology at London College of Fashion, have recently come together for a three-month-long residency at the Chelsea Space gallery to reflect upon the apron’s cultural and social values — its design and use, as well as role regarding issues of race, class, and gender identity.
It’s timely as the apron is enjoying something of a renaissance in popular culture — featuring, for example, in recent collections from Hermès, The Row, Dior, Phoebe Philo and Ganni and on Kaia Gerber who wore a chic pinafore-style dress while out in New York in April — and it’s ability to encompass unheard stories and experiences is starting to be critically appraised.
“They’ve been an unconscious part of many of our lives and childhoods,” said Tulloch. “While they only really have one function — to protect clothes — they come in many forms.”
The apron as a talisman
When Tulloch started critically examining aprons, they proved to be a fascinating insight into people across all strata of society, she said. “Those I wouldn’t expect to have a close relationship with aprons — academics, for example — become quite pensive when they start thinking about them.” Tulloch recalled a small show from some years ago, called ‘Pinnies from Heaven’ at the Makers Guild museum in Wales, exhibiting works created by artists based on their recollections of the apron. One artist talked about how, for them, the apron absorbed the detritus of all the things that happened in the home, not just the mess from cooking or cleaning, but emotional fallout too. “That really stuck with me,” Tulloch said.
For Clark, the apron is “talismanic.” Speaking to CNN via a phone call, she observed that the residency created an immediate sense of nostalgia for some people. “Within two minutes of coming in, people recount something of their family history,” she said.
Tulloch has also looked at aprons as a tool of protection and activism for women through the lens of African Jamaican market women called ‘Higglers’. “The Higgler is still very much a part of Jamaican identity,” says Tulloch. “She was visually defined by the apron, whether tied around the waist or as a full bib. Likewise they were worn by women who were pineapple or banana pickers, or domestic workers.”
Tulloch references contemporary South African artist Mary Sibande who explores the intersection of race, gender and labor in the country with her sculptural depictions of the apron-wearing “Sophie,” the artist’s self-proclaimed “alter ego who plays out the fantasies of the maternal women in her family.”
“Sibande’s great grandmother all the way up to her mother were all maids,” said Tulloch.
“The apron has served as a visual code in movies too: African American women were often defined as maids by the wearing of aprons in films and cartoons. Separately, the suffragettes reclaimed aprons, using pinafores emblazoned with slogans as activist tools, often when they had come out of prison for their campaigning work…”
But aprons weren’t always a sign of domesticity, servitude or homeliness, or of being working class. Nor were they always worn predominantly by women. Research suggests that triangular apron-like garments were first worn by noblemen in Ancient Egypt, as evidenced in paintings from the time. In the Middle Ages, aprons made from leather and heavy canvas were worn by farriers, cobblers, butchers, blacksmiths and other tradesmen desiring heavy duty protection from the perils of their work. Then, during the Renaissance, European “women of means” wore elaborate yet washable aprons adorned with lace and embroidery to keep their luxurious gowns clean. Aprons were a fixture of many employments during the industrial revolution, with strict codes delineating the styles to be worn by staff (plain, workaday) and the styles worn by the women holding the purse strings (elaborate, embroidered and made from more costly cloths).
In the 1950s, the apron came to be a symbol of homemaking particularly in the United States — think Lucille Ball’s Lucy Ricardo character in the 1950s sitcom “I Love Lucy” or more recently January Jones’ portrayal of Betty Draper in “Mad Men.”
A more genderless and diverse future
Despite the garment being such a part of our collective consciousness, aprons have rarely been studied, said Clark.“ Collections, such as the one held by the Fashion Museum (in Bath, England), are huge and of great cultural value and significance, but there hasn’t really been sustained research done on them,” she explained.
While displaying aprons comes with its own set of challenges — the style is tricky to mount due to its flat construction — Clark also suspects aprons have “not been considered of cultural importance because of their relationship to traditionally women’s domestic work.”
But perhaps that’s changing as the apron continues to be modernized, further cementing itself into popular culture. Thanks to Gen-Z’s increasing interest in food and cooking, apron-wearing is finding a new genderless and more diverse audience. While alpha male chefs of old wouldn’t often be seen in a pinafore (Gordon Ramsay aside, aprons were the preserve of a ‘cook’) Carmy’s proud pinny-wearing is a case in point. Even Vogue magazine decreed the return of the garment (alongside the rise of what they termed ‘gardening-core’) in their June 2025 issue.
“There’s some beautiful imagery of the late (fashion journalist and muse) Anna Piaggi with Karl Lagerfeld, using a Chanel cape as an apron,” said Clark. “I love their shape, their mobility, that they’re not fitted and so therefore are a truly inclusive garment… I love how easily the item can be subverted. It just refuses to be defined.”
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