Kitchen Aprons - Choose Your Apron Image

Message aprons first appeared in the late 1960s. Kiss the cook and For this I went to college were some of the most popular messages embossed on the once-again-popular full-length aprons. These messages were a reflection of the Feminist Movement that was starting to pick up steam at this time.

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While everyday women were using kitchen aprons for a variety of tasks, television shows mirrored this by featuring women wearing aprons in nearly every episode of family favorites. Over the past four decades, many of these shows have been in re-runs allowing later generations to have a peek into life in the 1950s. Naturally, it was not as idyllic as portrayed on television, but the shows have helped develop a stereotype of both the 1950s, in general, and kitchen aprons.

Magazines from the 1940s and 50s feature apron-adorned women in nearly every advertisement that is related to housework or cooking. It was a standard uniform that, at the time, was not frowned upon. Aprons were a selling feature for irons, kitchen appliances, food products and more.

The kitchen apron remained a common fixture in homes for more than a century until the late 70s and into the 1980s. By then, primarily food service workers and weekend barbecues were using the apron. While there are many kitchens in America that are apron-less, it is experiencing resurgence in popularity for many women. According to Antiques and Collectibles magazine, aprons of the 1950s have been experiencing a revival. Younger generations are looking back to what their grandmothers had and emulating it in a new way. Retro housewives clubs are popping up in large cities and over the Internet; looking back to the past for inspiration and style.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby: The History of the Kitchen Apron

Aprons reach into history as far back as Adam and Eve when they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons (Gen. 3:7) to hide their nakedness. Since then, aprons have gone on to many uses. Physically laborious, dirty and dangerous work requires an apron for protection. Butchers, waiters and welders continue to use aprons specifically designed for their occupation. Television shows and magazine ads from the 1950s were full of women, wearing kitchen aprons for every occasion, especially parties when their aprons were the final touch on the outfit for the night. Several decades later, in the late 1990s, aprons even made their way to the fashion runway when the so-called-new Apron dress was made fashionable, again.

For [domestic workers in the early 1900s] the apron was a convenient, all-purpose tool, used to carry wood and kindling, to gather eggs and vegetables, to wipe their brows in the noon-day sun, or just to hide a special treat for a willing helper.

In the kitchen were I grew up there was a drawer for nothing but aprons. My mother and grandmother would not be caught in the kitchen without one. I remember lime green with lace, pink calico, a blue one made from the same material as the tablecloth, a brown one with yellow chickens, a yellow one with teacups and saucers. The first thing I see when that room rises up in memory is a woman standing by the stove -- a woman in a kitchen apron.