The world is divided into those who wear aprons and those who do not. To celebrate the relaunch of our online store Annabelle Hickson of The Dailys blog and I are hosting a giveaway on Instagram. My apron loving friends and I post to the hashtag #ApronAppreciationSociety. This week Annabelle and I invite you to tag an apron themed shot #ApronAppreciationSociety (old or new) for your chance to win an apron from our store. The winner will be announced Sunday evening Dec 6. Photograph below by Laura Reid of Annabelle below wearing a Francalia linen apron in mushroom.
I stumbled across this article from The Mercury listing Stephanie Alexander, Michelle Crawford and Sally Wise as apron wearers. In recent years I am a convert to apron wearing, having splattered too many loved shirts or dresses with oil or butter while cooking. I am guilty of wearing my apron to the dinner table because, well there's even greater danger of destroying clothes there.
About a decade ago I started collecting retro aprons at second hand stores. When I cleaned out our linen cupboard recently I still couldn't part with that micro collection of aprons with their pastel 1950's and garish 1970's florals. My favourite was a Marimekko-esque orange and white geometric print, until it became so worn there really was no choice but to relegate it to the rag bag.
Sophie Hansen of Local is Lovely blog introduced me to linen aprons and we have since broadened our apron stock in the shop to include Fog Linen Work and Francalia 100 per cent linen aprons. I remember laughing when Sophie recalled wearing her apron, so comfortable, to the bus stop to collect the children from school.
My mother always wears her handmade aprons when she is cooking. Some of them are relics of my childhood, over-the-head pinafores, that she always wore when there was dirty work to be done or she wanted to finish a few chores before stepping out. Now I find myself doing the same.
At the first Daily Plenty Workshop in September this year a team of us helping in the kitchen and styling tables were rarely without our aprons (me above photographed by Noha Serageldin of Matters of the Belly). Annabelle Hickson and I observed the twenty-something Sarah Glover and Hannah Mccowatt preferred tight, body skimming, light aprons, while those of us ten or, ahem, 25 years older reached for the forgiving folds of flowing linen.
At one stage Annabelle and I were laughing at ourselves wearing almost matching aprons that we asked photographer Luisa Brimble to take a photo, with almost matching jumbo stirrers. So do dig out your aprons this week and have a play. We'd love you to join the #ApronAppreciationSociety.
Megan Trousdale
Author