Die Doppelschürze(The Double Apron)

By Adelheid HoltzhauerNovember 3, 2018

Background

Schürzen (or Aprons) are nearly as common in the 16th century as hats. Worn both by men and women for practical work purposes, imagery of the time shows a vast array of use and style. Looking specifically at the early part of the 16 th century, a different type of apron can be seen; the “Doppelschürze” which translates to “double apron”. Unlike other aprons, the Doppelschürze is always depicted on women and often those working in messy jobs such as midwifery (or butchering of the innocent).

Image 1: Daniel Mauch - Mariengeburt Liebughaus, 1520

Although aprons are noted as being worn by women of all stations, sometimes as evidence of prosperity (Kunstverlag, 1990, p. 18) the Doppelschürze is almost exclusively ascribed to working or peasant class women. There is some thought that the Doppelschürze was used by the renowned German artist Albrecht Dürer as a way to identify peasant class women in his art (Kunstverlag, 1990, p. 70).

In all practicality, aprons are worn as a top layer protecting the wearers clothing. They were made of linen or wool and could fur lined as a warmer layer and were limited in colour to white, red and black. Although some contemporary imagery shows other colours, these variations may be artistic in nature or regionally erratic. The Doppelschürze is exclusivly shown as white and

Image 3: Albrecht Durer - Peasant Couple Dancing, 1514

Image 2: Hans Sebald Beham - Häuslicher Zwist (Domestic Dispute), 1535

likely linen based on the washability of the fibre and the hard use it would see. There is some suggestion in imagery that the Doppelschürze may have had some minor colour embellishment such as coloured straps (as seen below) but that seems to be the extent of embellisment seen on these very functional articles of clothing.

Image 4: Jörg Breu the Elder - Spring - Die Augsburger Monatsbilder, c. 1520's

Although I haven’t done extensive studies on this style of aprons across Europe, I am not sure there are examples of this “double apron” outside of the German states. There are many examples found in art depicting Saxony and Nurnberg in the first quarter of the 16th century.

Production

The Doppelschürze I am working on is made of 5.3oz 100% white linen (commercially produced). The pattern I created can be found in Appendix A. Thread is 60/2 white linen which is hand waxed and sewn with modern steel needles.

In order to set the smocking along the tops of the apron, I used a cardstock template and pencil to mark 5 rows of equal distance stitches 1.5cm apart. Then I picked up each of those marks with a long thread, gathering the stitches into a pleated section of 5”.

Historical Note: the template is plausible as embroidery patterns were preserved on paper or parchment as a series of dots then a chalk or ash pounce would have

been used to set the pattern through the template onto the ground fabric. I have no evidence of smocking being set this way.

Image 5: Test swatch of pleating at 1.5 cm

Image 6: Test swatches of 1.5cm and 1cm pleating

Image 7: Stitches ready to be picked up to set pleating

At the time of writing this documentation, the pleating is nearly all set and gathered. Once gathered, I will use a series of smocked stitches in white linen thread to set the pleats in place as seen in the source images. Since the pleating appears to extend a few inches below the tops of the apron, some sort of “setting” stitch must be used to accomplish the look.

I am still debating whether the shoulder straps run along the top of the pleating or under the arms. Based on the “black strap” images, I am leaning towards running the straps along the tops.

Because I used materials on hand for this project, my options were limited for fabric. In the future, I will use a finer linen in order to achieve a better, more full drape to the apron.

Image 8: Sebald Beham - Vomiting Peasant, 1537

Appendix A

Works CitedKunstverlag, D. (1990). Textiler Hausrat: Kleigung und Haustextiilen in Nürnberg von 1500-1650. München: Dt.

Kunstverlag.