Apron Fetish

The history of the apron

Article

June 2024

‘The apron is the most fascinating, dizzying and crazy garment ever created. It has been seen on everyone from Adam, Eve and the serpent to prehistoric men and archaic ploughmen, Egyptian gods, and the mischievous Knossos snake goddesses of Crete. Millennium after millennium, it thrives on this Earth.

Fig 1. Apron by Margaret Häusler, styling by Jessica Hayes, Jardin des serres d'Auteuil, Paris

To define the apron is an impossible task, because it always appears when it is least expected. It is universal: always evolving but maintaining its primitive form – a front with ties, and perhaps a bib and a yoke. It is true that the apron protects and connects, but it does so with great ambiguity. It is a constant shape-shifter and a free electron in a rigidly formatted world.

The apron is perhaps, above all, a fetishistic tease. Viewed from the front, it covers almost everything; but from the back, its sudden lack of fabric leaves the imagination free to fantasize.

Professional garment for some, fetish for others, it is even more iconic than the little black dress, blue jeans or the white T-shirt, because it is more elusive. But that does not matter because, whatever its manifestation – dazzling or destroyed, its ties knotted at the back – the apron will always be an indisputable expression of freedom and desire. Ever ready to return to centre stage.’

DOMINIQUE FALLECKER,
fashion historian

Fig 2. Apron by Margaret Häusler, styling by Jessica Hayes, Jardin des serres d'Auteuil, Paris

Fig 3. Apron by Margaret Häusler, styling by Jessica Hayes, Jardin des serres d'Auteuil, Paris

Over the fence –
Strawberries – grow –
Over the fence –
I could climb – if I tried, I know – Berries are nice!
But – if I stained my Apron–
God would certainly scold!
Oh, dear, – I guess if He were a Boy – He’d – climb – if He could!

– EMILY DICKINSON