The British smock can be traced back to the medieval period and was commonly worn by men working in agriculture around the middle of the 19th century. These practical smocks usually made of linen or linen mixed fabrics often featured smocking and other forms of embroidery. Later in the century they fell from favour as a farming garment because of a range of factors including the rise of mechanisation. Smocks, especially the long kinds, posed the risk of getting caught in machinery and causing harm or death.

Around the end of the century the smock was taken up by artistic circles, again as a simultaneously utilitarian and decorative garment. It was embraced in particular for childrenswear and by artists, who used long smocks or overalls, usually in hardwearing linen, to protect the clothes worn underneath. Many of these artists were women. In late 19th-century Britain, increasing numbers of women trained in different types of artistic production, from painting to ceramics, metalwork and embroidery. Smocks also appealed within these circles because of their links with handcraft and tradition, central ideals of connected turn-of-the-century movements such as Arts and Crafts, the Glasgow School and Artistic dress reform. Shorter, more robust versions of the smock became part of the uniforms worn by women in the Land Army of the First World War.

This full-length British womenswear smock is from around 1900. The linen used could have been produced in Ireland, Scotland or north-west England. The generous sleeves, sweeping skirt and buttons only at the upper back were designed to allow for freedom of movement, another ideal for dress reformers rebelling against fashionable Victorian womenswear, aspects of which could be tight and restrictive. Artists’ smocks, like their forerunners, could be either quite plain (see V&A T.130-2015) or elaborate. This version is decorated with satin and chain stitch embroidery on the yoke, cuffs and pocket. The embroidery depicts stylised flowers and leaves and more abstract lines in purples and greens. The design is loosely comparable to Glasgow School of Art-style patterns such as those published in Margaret Swanson and Ann Macbeth’s Educational Needlework of 1911.

The colours of the pattern overlap with the green, purple and white colour scheme adopted from 1908 by the Women’s Social and Political Union, a leading women’s suffrage group. However, while various women on the British artistic scene of this era including teachers and pupils of the Glasgow embroidery classes are known to have supported women’s suffrage, there is no proven connection between this garment and the contemporary votes for women campaign.