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We note a Trutex Schoolwear add from 1969. Trutex was one of the primary manufacturers of schoolwear in Britain. The interesting thing is that the boy on the left is David Parfitt who played the younger boy in the TV show “And Mother Makes Three”. Many of these young actors also modelled clothing, The other thing is that the Trutex schoolwear the boys are shown modelling here is the same range as HBC shows slightly older boys modelling on the school uniform.
We believe that this is from the a 1969 advertisement, but it is possible it came from an early 1970s ad. The Trutex schoolwear the boys are shown modelling here is the same range as HBC shows slightly older boys modelling on the main English school uniform page.
Trutex was one of the primary manufacturers of schoolwear in Britain. A British reader tells us, "I remember Trutex only from posters put up in shop windows.This was a more expensive range and was not sold in chainstores like
BHS but through smaller menswear/boyswear shops (some of which also stocked the specialised items like blazers for individualschools that chain stores didn't sell). Trutex also did not advertise in the tabloid press like BHS did so these adverts also probably appeared in the more upmarket woman's magazines. They also did not sell through catalogues such as Freemans or Littlewoods. As you can see, Trutex tried to be a bit more “fashionable” than the chain stores. HBC pointed out on the Englisg school uniform page the waist tab feature of the shorts here. Another innovation was the round-collared (or penny-collared) shirts. BHS did not catch on to this style until a couple of years later when everyone wanted them rather then pointed-collar shirts.
The interesting thing is that the boy on the left is David Parfitt who played the younger boy in the TV show “And Mother Makes Three”. Many of these young actors also modelled clothing. This dates the range to the late 1960s or early 70s by David's age at the time.
HBC does no have the ad copy that went with the illustration seen here so we do not have details such as sizes, features, material, etc.
The Trutex ad here shows ties, shirts, and short trousers.
I am not sure that Trutex was really offering these ties for sale. Most schools had specific colors. Perhaps theu just wanted to show the boys wearing ties as many schools required them.
Most British boys in 1969 wore either white or grey shirts to school. There were a few exceptions such as schools with blue shirts, but the vast majority of boys wore either grey or white shirts. Some schools, especially privateschools, had rules for wearing these scirts--grey for every day and white for speciall occassions. State schools for the most part let the boys wear which ever they wanted. The shirts hear are destinctive in that the collars are not pointed. Tey are also not rounded. Rather they are pointed-style collars with rounded tips. We have not noted them being commnly worn by English scjoolboys.
The destinctive feature of these short trousers are the tab clodsures. Note that there are no belt loops. I do not think that these shorts had elastic half backs--but am not sure. While we do not have the ad copy, we believe that they were offered only in grey. We are also not sure about the material. Note that they are done in the short-cut Contunental style.
A British reader tells us, "None of the boys at my primary school wore these Trutex clothes. Much more commonly worn were BHS items, but a few boys wore items from catalogs. As I pointed out before catalogue clothes were cheapest but often a couple of years out of date and not many boys liked them.BHS were what most boys
wore and were reasonably priced. As I said they used to take out full page adverts in the mass-circulation daily papers ( the “woman's pages”) 2 or 3 weeks before the new school year began. They also used to set up window displays in the stores. BHS shirts and shorts were fairly standard and would not have the elaborations of Trutex – like the round collars or long waist tabs. My point is that catalogues, poster adverts, or even TV shows like “And Mother Makes Three” show what some boys would wear in the 70s ( TV shows would naturally go for more fashionable clothing) but not the mass. The mass market would be sold through newspaper adverts – few of which survive like catalogues or poster adverts do. Probably in some areas of London parents did buy their schoolclothes from smaller shops that stocked non-chainstore brands like “Trutex” or “Banner” but not round our more wworking-class way. The long hair (similar in the TV show “And Mother Makes Three”) is also trying to link in to the “fashionable” aspects of Trutex. The BHS newspaper ads showed boys with short hair as I recall – which most schools still required. By the way – the Trutex
adverts also show the new-style Summer grey shirts that I told you came out then. They were nylon – really just grey versions of the standard white shirts, non thick, warm flannelette material like the “proper” grey shirts that I preferred even in Summer. It's interesting that this Trutex advert is from 1969 because it's around that time that BHS brought out a completely new range of boys' clothes – not
just schoolwear but their Summer range too before that – more colourful and lightweight clothing like I told you my mum bought for me to go to Germany with. It was a real turning point and I suppose you could say that there really was a distinct 70s style as compared to the 60s. and that the chainstores were starting to capture the mass market and driving out the smaller shops and even local department stores which existed then. So there was not such a variety in the type of clothes worn as chainstores would bulk-buy clothing and sell it heavily. I don't recall there being TV ads. - but these might have been shown later in the evenings when we were in bed. I didn't watch much TV in the Summer preferring to be out and about. I know even now TV ads are not aimed at kids but shown later at night to appeal to parents wishes - cost,easy-clean,hard-wearing etc. rather than “style”. If the manufacturers can appeal to both they can make a killing. HBC readers may want to read more about Bill's observations.
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