Figure 1.--This 2000 catalog offering shows two Japanese (or perhaps Korean) boys wearing short pants with ribbed tights. The shirts and shorts were offered for sale. The boys are wearing short-sleeved shirts with summer-weight shorts. These were the grments being offered for sale. The boy on the left has beige tights while the boy on the right wears white tights. Clearly, with summer clothes, tights are not needed for warmth. They seem to be worn for formality or because some schools required tights as part of the school uniform. Probably the catalog company thought the tights gabe the shorts a better look. Notice the American license plates in the background--an attempt, apparently, to make the style look American, although we don't see American boys of this age wearing tights very often. The boys seem to be about six and seven years old. The matching outfits (except for the color of the tights) suggest a school uniform. Notice the lunch box, a clear suggestion that the garments were schoolwear.

Tights for children are a relatively new garment, first appearing after World War II in the late-1950s. They replaced the cumbersome long stockings that many children had formerly worn in the 19th and early-20th century. We first see tights in Germany, but this is a little difficult to follow because at the time they appeared, more boys were beginning to wear long pants. And in Germany thre were no school uniforms so tights were worn on an individual basis. Tights subequently appeared in Russia and Poland as well. We are not sure when they first appeared in Asia. We notice them in H\Japan during the 1960s. We are not sure about Korea, but we saw children commonly wearing tghem in South Korea during the early-70s. Thry were pribably introduced in the 60s. Tights continue to be worn to school in several countries into the 21st century, although this is not always apparent because boys in the late-20th century less commonly wire short pants to school during cold weather.

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Created: 6:17 AM 11/12/2010
Last updated: 6:17 AM 11/12/2010