Figure 1.--???

Some caution must be used in assessing the clothing styles displayed in fashion magazines. Often these fashions are idealized styles, reflecting more how mothers wanted to dress their children than how boys actually dressed. This is not to say that the fashions ha no influence. The influence, however, appears to have varied over time.

Reader Assessment

A HBC reader reports that in the last couple of years he has been looking through pictures from the 1940's and '50's to help him remember those decades for a couple of stories he was writing . He's a novelist not an historian, more interested in the spirit than the pure facts. Given that, he found that magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar (and, by inference, 19th Century publications like Godoy's) did not reflect the life and clothes of his childhood and adolescence.

He found that the big general interest magazines (Life and Look) were much more helpful and that they were most helpful when they were describing something else. A 1950 car ad, for instance, showed how boys dressed (crewcuts, bow tie, blazer and long pants) more accurately, he thinks, than a photo essay about musical prodigies (long hair, shorts, sandals). A Life spread on the assimilation of an immigrant boy from Eastern Europe had, in the background of the photos shot at his high school, kids dressed the way I could remember dressing in the late '50's (some Ivy League styles, some Greasers, a lot more somewhere vaguely in the middle). An article on a "typical American teen" was accompanied by pictures where everyone seemed to be dressed in their very best.

While the pictures Godoy's and the early Harper's are fascinating. Especially when we realize that people like Teddy Roosevelt and Gary Cooper probably spent their young boyhoods in dresses and curls (they being well-to-do kids), we must remember that Mark Twain's descriptions of Tom and Huck's clothing reflects much more accurately the way boys dressed in the late 19th century. The Yellow Kid comic strip reflected the reality of a far larger part of the population than the Buster Brown strip. Here I differ with HBC. I think only a tiny percentage of American boys wore Fauntelroy suits. I think, however, a la Tarkington's Penrod stories, that the influence was there and that mothers would put bows on boys on the slightest excuse.

He reports at a flea market looking through some late 1950s issues of Boy's Life. (Boys' Life is the U.S. Scouting magazine.) And while this is a very specific part of the population (overwhelmingly white middle class boys from 10-15 years old), it does dispel the notion that once Elvis sang on the Sullivan show every boy in the U.S. bought tight jeans and grew his hair.

HBC Comments

HBC believes that the above reader comments make a very important point. Clearly material from fashion magazines van not be taken as an indicator of what the average boy wore. Generally speaking, some boys may have wore these fashionable fashions--but in some cases only a small part of the population. Vogue and Harper's Bazaar were aimed at very trendy wealthy audience. It does not surprise me that they are not what the average American remembers wearing during the same time period. However, wealthy New Yorkers and other trendier areas of the time (Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston) probably saw more children wearing these more "idealized" clothes.

HBC takes issue with one aspect of the readers comments. He extends his expeiences in the 1950s an 60s to 19th century fashion magazines. HBC is not at all convinced that this is an accurate assumption. We believe that the 19th century fashion magazines did, as in the 20th century, reflect the fashions of the most affluent. However, these fashions appear to have been mich more widely worn than may have been the case in the 20th century. An important factor in the 19th century is that mothers had much more to say in selecting boys' clothes than in the 20th century. Mothers in the 19th century had much more discression than is the case today. They could actualy dress their sons as they wanted an cloesly read fashion magazines for stylish ideas.

It is difficicult to estimate with any precussion the number of boys dressed in fancy styles like Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. HBC believes that it was a minority, but certainly not a "tiny percentage". (This topic is addressed in the Fauntleroy pages.) HBC believes the large number of photographic portraits taken during this period show that even elaborate fashions like Little Lord Fauntleroy suits were actually widely worn. Available clothing catalogs offer further confirmation that such clothes were actually purchased. As is the casde in many investigations, one key is often to "follow the money". While fashion magazines might highlight fancy clothes that few would wear, retailers like Sears and Montgromery Ward would not. Their clientel were not the rich families of New York and Boston. They would only avertise items that could be sold in quantities. The fact that they an other merchanicers inclued Fauntleroy suits and other fancy styles in their catalogs for several years is very strong evience that the suits were sold in substantial quantities. As strange as this may seem to our moern fashion sensabilities, these suits an lother outfits like kilt suits were in fact wiely worn by boys.

Popular Publications

A number of American literary, phot-journalist, and other magazines offer helpful infotmation about contemprary boys clothing. The 19th century magzines were primarily literary magazines with fascinating drawings. Jourmalitic magazines began to appear in the 19th century when the technologu for publihing photographs helped add drama to the magaines. Some like the Saturday Evening Post combined literature and a journalism. Eventually Time, Life, Look, and others became mainstays of the American household.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
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[Sailor hats] [Buster Brown suits]
[Eton suits] [Rompers] [Tunics] [Smocks] [Pinafores]

Created: July 14, 1999
Last updated: January 13, 2001