The 1920s was a major turning point for boys' fashions. Short pants in Europe and knickers in America worn with knee length socks rapidly replaced knee length pants and long stockings. The growing popularity of the Boy Scout uniform played an important role in popularizing shorts. The trend was particularly rapid in England and Continental Europe. Quite old boys were soon wearing short pants suits and sporting bare

Figure 1.--While Anmerican boys mostly wore knickers in the 1920s, most sailor suits during the decade were worn with short pants.

knees.

The Decade

The 1920s was not just any decade. Even those without any interest or knowledge of history have heard of the "Roaring 20s". It may have been the brashest, the loudest, and brighest decade at all. The images are numerous and often starteling: bath-tub gin, gangsters, fast cars, prosperity, short skirts, bobbed hair, modern art, the Charleston, and many more. In many ways our modern era was born in the 1920s. The catastrophe of the Great War gave it birth and a calamity of the Great Depression ended it. Within the brief 10 years many in Europe and America changed how they looked on themselves and the world. Fashions was only one of the many changes-- but in many ways the most observable.

Changing Styles

The 1920s were notorious for its scandalous changes in fashion and custom. It was not just boys fashions which changed. Girls and women bobbed their hair at the same time long curls for boys also passed from the fashion scene. Just as shorter pants became common for boys (at least in Europe), women also began showing your knees as hemlines rose--the costume glamorized by the flapper.

The heorine of the 1920s was the flapper. Her revolutionary short hair and a short skirt, with turned-down hose and powdered knees--scandalized the older generation. The flapper must have seemed to her mother (symbolized by the gentle, but elegant Gibson girl of an earlier generation) like a Hell-bent rebel. No longer confined to home and tradition, the typical flapper was a young women who was often thought of as fast and brazen. Mostly, the flapper offended the older generation because she defied conventions of acceptable feminine behavior. The flapper was "modern." Traditionally, women's hair had always been worn long. The flapper wore it short, or bobbed. She used make-up (which she might well apply in public). And the flapper wore baggy dresses which often exposed her arms as well as her legs from the knees down.

Some authors believe that fashion trends during the 1920’s displayed the superficiality and rebellion of the era. Outward appearance rather than personality was found to be most appealing and fashion helped create that feeling. Fashion was evident in the dancing and movies of the decade and was made popular by the flappers. Many writers such as H.L. Mencken and F. Scott Fitzgerald showed the importance of fashion and how it contributed to society and fashion was a major part of the atmosphere of the time period.

While it was the flapper that caught the public eye, boys' fashions were quietly makin a revolution of their own. In fact, a major cross current occurred in the 1920s. Boys' clothes became less girlish. Little boys no longer wore dresses nor Fauntleroy suits with lace collars--although boys from affluent families might still wear a kess fancy velvet suit. At the same time, girls' clothes became more boyish. The short dresses were complemented with long necklaces and short and sometimes bobbed hair. The "boyish" look was the trend of the period and short hair was considered attractive. This was not just a cute histiorical footnote. Clothes have from time immemorial symboloized social status and power. Men's clothes symbolized power and authority. Feminine clothes symbolized attractive, but submissive social status. Girls in the 19th Century never wore men's clothes. Even the bloomers interoduced by Emelia Bloomer had scandalized Victorian society. The fact that girl's clothes were becoming more boyish was in fact a reflection of the changing status of women.

Just why did fashion change so markedly in the 1920s? An entire book could be written on this topic. Surely the disaster of the World War I caused people to covet change. Many fear change and hold on to old traditions. This was especially true in the more static socities before the development of mass media. The War invalidated many of the exiting taboos and social standards. It undermined the existing social order. At the same time the new mass media was beginning to coalese around movies which appeared in the 1900s and radio which appeared in the 1920s. Never before had so much information about the wider world been available to so many people. People wanted to experiment and try something new. They proceeded to do so, in many cases with abandon.

Fabrics

Natural fibers (linen, cotton, and wool, silk). Fancy fabrics, acetate, and rayon (artificial silk) became less commonly used, even for dress clothes.

Figure 2.--Working on their Erectorsets at home was a common passtime for American boys through the 1950s. This idealized scene shows a home scene during the 1920s shows the one boy wearing knickers. Presumably his brother also wears them.

Inovations during the decade incuded development of bias-cutting fabric by Madeleine Vionnet. Also acetate was invemted. fabric in 1924

Country Trends

America

American boys wore both single and double-breasted suits were worn. The suits for older boys, like those for men, display broad shoulders as boys' and men’s suit jackets did not change greatly. Men’s style changes were not nearly as radical as those for women and girls during the 1920s. Most boys wore their suits with knickers. Some younger boys wore shorts, but knicker suits was the dominante fashion. Even American Boy Scouts wore knickers. A few older American boys wore short trousers, but primarily boys in wealthy with English or other European connections. American boys in the 1920s mostly wore knicker suits. It was quite common at the beginning of the decade to see older highschool boys wearing knickers, but this began tio change toward the end of the decade. Younger boys wore either shorts or knickers. The shorts were mostly longer knee length style.

The 1920s were a time of experimentation, as the suit silhouette turned to the natural-shoulder look, and the first sports jacket--the Norfolk, modeled after the hunting suit worn by the Duke of Norfolk in the early 18th century--was produced. This decade also saw the rise and fall of jazz clothing, which had little semblance of balance or respect for the human form, with its inordinately long, tight-fitting jackets and narrow trousers; the cake-eater suit, named for college students who wore this slightly exaggerated copy of the natural-shoulder suit; and the knicker suit, featuring plus-four knickers that fell four inches below the knee.

Figure 3.--Period movies like this 1929 silent film, "Marriage Playgroud," are good sources of informatiin on 1920 styles. Note the older boy (Philippe de Lacy) wears long shorts while the younger boy (Billy Seary) wears shorter shorts and white gloves.

The knitting fever of the war years carried over into civilian life of the 1920s but in soft yarns of lovely colors, in sweaters and caps. Children's clothes were now designed with knee length skirts and shorts, both garments growing shorter and shorter. Boys took to wearing flannel, tweed, and serge suits with shirts and scarfs like those of their elders, topped by the beret and also the peaked cloth cap. Girls' dresses were of gay fabrics with flowered, striped and spotted motif.

Boys' pants or trousers through the 1920s had button closures. The BFGoodrich Co. in 1924 registered the name "zipper," although it would be a number of years before this closure was used in any apparel other than overshoes, it would eventually repace buttons.

Wealthy Americans still looked to Europe for trend setting fashions, Many wealthy Americans chose English suits for their boys in the new short pants fashion. French fashions often perdominated in setting fashions for younger boys. Fashionable little boy outfits of the 1920s before the Depression might have labeld from Paris fashion houses such as the Magasins du Louvre.

Most little girls wore their hair short and boys had their heads cropped as soon as they could convince their mothers.

Girls fashions also changed. Small misses wore the beret, the cloche and soft tams. Girls also began wearing short socks, including the younger teen-agers, hence the name of "bobby-soxers."

Before the 1920s most well-off families had household help to assist with heavy cleaning and the onerous weekly laundering. Availability of servants decreased in the 1920s as immigration was restricted and more women entered the work force. Such help was needed less as labor-saving conveniences such as electricity and running water came to most homes. Also, vacuum cleaners and electric washing machines were readily available. Even so, the increasing participation of women in the work place and the declining availability of servants for all but the wealthiest families were major factors in the popularity of simpler clothing styles for children as well as adults.

England

English boys after reaching 8 years of age and sent off to their preparatory schools. This helped set 8 years as the age at which juvenile styles were exchanged for more mature styles--often grey suits. Thus styles like sailor suits were generally not worn by older English boys--although it was in England that the sailor suit was first adopted for boys. Boys at the beginning of the decade often wore the basic Eton suit with a stiff white collar. As the decade progressed, colorful bazers and soft collars became an increasingly accepted school uniform. Almost all elementary school boys wore short pants and knee socks. In England shorts remained mostly just above the kneesand often quite baggy. Older boys of 13 or so would wear longs. Some older English boys wore shorts, but primarily as part of a school uniform. All English, as other European scouts wore short pants.

Figure 4.--French mothers turned to shorter length shorts in the 1920s. One popular dress outfit for formal occassions was the classic Fauntleroy style of the late 1880s.

France

The tunic style that had been so popular was little seen in the 1920s. Boys mostly wore short pants. The length of the shorts became shorter and shorter on the continent, especially for younger boys. Shorts were still generally long at the beginning of the decade, but younger boys were wearing quite short shorts by the end of the decade. French and Italian mothers drew on the Fauntleroy style, but with short pants, white knee socks, and strap shoes for formal dress occasions. But ordinary short pants became the normal dress for boys all over Europe. Some older boys were were wearing thigh- high shorts by the end of the decade. These were suits chosen by parents and not school uniforms. Boys commonly wore smocks to school, but they began to wear them less commonly when they got home--except for younger boys.

Figure 5.--German boys continued to wear sailor suits in the 1920s, the popularity of the style does not seem to have been affected by the experience of the First World War.

Germany

Nowhere was the old social order shaken more profoundely than in Germany. Fashiion changes, however, basically followed the same paterns as in the rest of Europe. German boys adopted the same styles that appeared in other European countries. Short pants for boys became widely worn, although the length stayed at about the knee for most of the decade. Shorts were usually worn with knee socks, although younger boys often wore long over-the-knee stockings during the colder months, a fashion that became quire rare in Britain and America. Sailor suits continued to be a popular style for boys, even younger teenagers, throughoy the decade. In this Germany diverged from Britain and America where the sailor suit became a fashion primarily for younger boys.

Italy

Sorry, no information available on Italy yet. Please let me know if you have any information or images.

Additional information

• "Shorts" Are A Coming Fashion: The increasing popularity of the new style in England during the early 1920s
• Usage Critical in England: Sport wear and dress clothes (Fauntleroy, sailor, and Eton suits during the mid1920s