We did a recent article for a medical journal on the evolution of the nursing uniform more commonly known as scrubs. The final story captures the interesting changes we have found through our research and the archives we have studied. Back in the early days nursing uniforms were either full dresses or a skirted bottom. Today there is a more modernized cotton scrubs as produced by the modern scrub designers at http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/. The evolution basically takes us from nursing uniforms as a sign of the times when women wore exclusively dresses to a trend with more practical and baggy fitting scrub that allowed the nurses to perform their work in a comfortable uniform. Today scrubs are following on with fashion trends and while maintaining a practical fit, the scrubs are designed to fit a little tighter and the prints and cuts on the scrubs are following those of a modern fashion designer. In a way it almost completes the loop when scrubs were a modeled after our regular outfits and today being designed to fit and be styled like our everyday outfits.

There are some interesting stories in the article about when and why styles on scrubs were made but for the sake of this post we will just say like any sports uniform, school uniform, etc they are altered to reflect a sign of the times or rather and evolution or reflection on the one whom wears the uniform. Take baseball uniforms for example if you look back at your fathers old baseball cards and compare that to today’s ball players you will notice a great difference in the styling of the uniform. Pants are baggier, hats are fitted and flat billed, pant legs are not tucked into socks anymore, but draped over. The uniforms are branded with athletic companies logos as some sort of product placement advertisements. That’s not the case with nursing uniforms but don’t be surprised if you begin to see hospital logos, brand logos, and even pharmaceutical company logos pop up on their uniforms.