This maid or servants apron is made of a plain cotton weave and has green embroidery around its border and pockets. It has stains on the right side beneath the pocket and is missing some of its leafy borders. White aprons like this one “were never completely out of fashion at any time” because they were “almost always worn.”

The domestic servant who wore this apron would have been working hard and using the apron for its technical purposes: to protect the garment beneath. She would have been cleaning her hands with apron, holding food in it, and dusting with it. Similar to the milkmaid in the drawing below, who will soon use her apron to clean her hands after milking the cows.

Due to their dirty household duties, “the dress of female servants was not remarkable.” But the embroidered detail does manage to add some character to this traditional accessory and would have distinguished her from the other maids.

 

Levitt, Sarah. Victorians Unbuttoned: Registered Designs for Clothing, their Makers and Wearers, 1839-1900. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1986, 178.

Lister, Margot. Costumes of Everyday Life: An Illustrated History of Working Clothes. Boston: Plays Inc., 1972, 113.

Buck, Anne M. Victorian Costume. New York: Universe Books, 1961, 145.

White Apron, Historic Clothing Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA. 2011.8.124.