American Boys Clothes in the 1960s: California Boy

I was born in the early Fifties, and grew up in California. Boys in California came to wear casual short pants extensivdely. But when I was a boy we still mostly wore jeans--long pants jeans.

Jeans

I remember when I was about 6 seeing a billboard for Levis, with a cowboy squatting at a campfire wearing blue jeans. Blue jeans were what I and every other elementary boy wore to school each day, and I liked them a lot. I had noticed that some high school boys wore slacks, which I thought were ugly. I dreaded growing up and having to wear slacks, and that billboard gave me hope that one could be an adult and still wear jeans. For some reason, my dream came true. I remember reading commentaries in the sixties by members of the eastern establishment who thought that when youth wore blue jeans it was a mark of rebellion. I thought that was silly, since I wore them for the most conservative of reasons--they were what I had always worn!

School

My Younger years

Through most of elementary school, all boys wore long pants. It didn't matter how hot it got, it was unthinkable to wear shorts. When my mother would suggest that short pants would be more practical, I wouldn't hear it. Shorts were for preschoolers. As far as I can remember, from Kindergarten through 4th grade, no boys wore short pants to school.

I can vaguely remember conversations with mu mother on the subject. As near as I can get it, the jist was "But you'd be more comfortable wearing shorts," answered with a petulant "I don't wanna!" I guess the last such discussion was when I was about 9, and we were going somewhere, but I can't remember anything more specific than that except I don't think that it was a particularly dressy occasion. I just didn't want to wear shorts in a non-play situation.

Folk dancing

The only time I remember wearing shorts in that period was when there was a school folk dance festival, and shorts were part of our costume. It felt odd to be wearing shorts to school, but there was also something oddly intriguing about it.

Changes in the 1960s

By fifth grade, however, things started to change. In the Spring of 1964, some boys started to wear shorts. If the weather was warm, some boys would wear shorts. The numbers got larger as over the next few years until 8th grade in 1967, when on a warm day maybe 5-10 percent of boys would be wearing shorts. As far as I could tell, these were spontaneous decisions made by the boys themselves. Nobody claimed any parental pressure. Some boys wore madras plaid shorts, others wore corduroy shorts, and my best friend frequently wore some lederhosen that his sister had brought him from Germany (without the suspenders--that would have been too clownish). Now shorts were cool--both literally and figuratively. I think that part of their attraction was that they showed how much longer our 11-year-old legs were growing.

Shirts

In cool weather I wore plaid flannel shirts, with a white t-shirt underneath. In warmer weather I wore short-sleeved woven shirts, maybe a madras plaid, maybe vertical stripes, maybe solid, again with the white t-shirt underneath. Other times a polo shirt or t-shirt. By 5th grade I always left the top button of my shirts unbuttoned, as to wear it buttoned was considered "fem".

Shoes and Socks

I usually wore sneakers. I usually wore mu sneakers with athletic socks. They generally were white with a couple of colored bands at the top. No adjustment were made to that when wearing shorts.

Play Clothes

Occasionally. In my preschool years I wore short elastic-waist boxer shorts, generally solid-color twill, also some striped seersucker. After beginning school, I got out of the habit of wearing shorts. I wore them the summer between kindergarten & 1st grade, but not much after that. Somewhere in there is when I developed the idea that shorts were too babyish for an eight-year-old to wear. When I resumed wearing shorts at 11, the only shorts I had left were some brown boxers left over from the last time my mother had attempted to provide for my comfort a year or two before. So I got new bermuda-length shorts, no elastic waist, in tan and light blue. Some other boys wore plaid shorts, as this was during the madras fad. There were also some with tan cord shorts, also bermuda length, and my friend had mid-thigh length lederhosen.

I didn't have separate play clothes. I continued to wear my school clothes after I got home. Maybe if the day was hot I'd take off my shirt and just wear my t-shirt. The fashion was to take off a long-sleeved shirt when it got hot and tie the arms around your waist.

Types of Shorts

Cut-Offs

I associate cutoffs with the hippies' esthetic of funkiness. I remember wearing them in my early teens, say about 1967. I had no awareness of them being an innovation, so I don't remember anything specific about their introduction. By my midteens, they were the only kind of shorts I wore. Since they were made from jeans I'd already broken in, they were very comfortable. My growth had already slowed down, so there was no problem with them being too tight. It occurs to me that the fake cutoffs sold in stores made more sense for growing boys, as their old jeans would be too tight for them. I always associated the fake cutoffs with younger boys, as nobody my age wore them.

An interesting aspect of cutoffs is that their length was determined by their owner. In earlier years, cutoffs were a few inches short of kneelength, but they got shorter as the years went by. Maybe that's partly due to the fact that cutoffs have a natural tendency to get shorter as they fray, but I think that a more important reason is that there was a certain amount of daringness involved in how short you cut them. Not wanting to be a weenie, you'd cut them as short as you'd seen others wear, and maybe a little shorter just to be safe. In my college years in the 70s, they were worn very short indeed.

Cord shorts

I didn't notice cord shorts becoming important until the 2nd half of the 70s, when I started seeing OPs. I bought some, and was pleased with how comfortable they were. I was disappointed when they went out of fashion in the mid-80s.

Suits

I had some suits, all long pants suits--even when I was younger. Every few years my mom would notice that I didn't have a suit that fit me, and we'd get another. It didn't matter to her that they seemed never to get used, she thought that she'd be failing in her duties as a mother if I didn't have a suit. I finally got some use out of my suit in junior high, when every month or so there was an old woman who wore too much jewelry and makeup who would teach us how to foxtrot. It was also around this time that my dad started playing in the orchestra of a local amateur musical theater. The first few times I attended performances I wore my suit, later I reverted to my slovenly ways. It took me at least another decade before I learned how to tie my own tie.

I never had a shorts suit. It just wasn't the fashion in that time and place, not even in the earlier grades. I wouldn't have stood for it when I was younger. By the time I was 12, I think that I would have been amused to have worn a shorts suit, as the idea was so inconceivable at the time.

Scouts

I wasn't a scout. I remember that cub scouts wore their uniform to school on the days that they'd have meetings, and that they wore long blue pants with yellow piping. I don't have as clear a memory of boys wearing boy scout uniforms.





Christopher Wagner

histclo@lycosmail.com


Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to Main U.S. page]
[Introduction] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Biographies] [Bibliographies] [Activities] [Countries] [FAQs] [Contributions]
[Boys' Clothing Home]


Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web chronological pages:
[The 1840s] [The 1900s] [The 1930s] [The 1940s] [The 1950s] [The 1960s] [The 1970s] [The 1980s] [The 1990s]



Created: January 30, 2000
Last updated: January 30, 2000