Smocked Clothing
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Smocked
clothing uses an embroidery technique called "smocking" that allows it to stretch without
elastic.
Clothes that use smocking are generally
flexible and quite practical, though they are not as common in everyday wear today as they were
in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Smocking is
commonly found in dresses, and can be just as easily applied to areas of a torso garment, like
the cuffs, sleeves, or collar. Today smocking finds most of its application in childrens'
wear.
The two
main styles of smocking used in clothing are English smocking and North American
smocking.
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The former was developed as early as the 12th century, and was
atypical for being a style of embroidery used in commoners' clothing. The latter was adapted from the first, and
found its most prominent modern usage in everyday wear in the 1930s through the 1960s.
Today, however, tastes have shifted to back to the English style
due to its popularity in sewing, embroidery, and smocking magazines. There are also other, lesser-used styles, like
lattice smocking, and virtually every country that produces smocked clothing has adapted a unique style.
The most common types of
cloth used in smocked clothing are cotton and silk. These fabrics are lightweight, and possess a kind of weave
that gathers together well, making them ideal for smocking. The application of smocking to a fabric will
typically reduce its wearable size by about one-third, though this amount varies depending on the weight of the
cloth used.
There are a variety of
different stitches used for smocking, and the application of a particular stitch depends on the decorative
effect desired. Early smocked garments were pleated and embroidered by hand. Since the 1950's, however, most
smocking is performed by pleating machines, which use specialty needles for pleating.
Many of the clothes worn by
babies and toddlers are smocked clothes, especially decorative clothing. A smocked dress is probably the most common type
of smocked garments, though smocking has applications in some adult-sized dresses as well. Due to the decorative
nature of smocking in childrens' clothing, smocked garments tend to fetch a higher price than normal childrens'
clothes.
In many online retailers,
smocked clothing for boys and girls ranges from $10-$90, with the average being around the $30 mark. These
garments come in all variety of colors and patterns, and tend to use bright pastels. They can also feature other
decorative elements besides smocking alone, such as bows and lace.
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