Figure 1.--Sanda;s were common for everyday wear at many prep schools. They were commonly worn with short pants and knee socks. Notice the boys here are wearing grey shirts. |
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A range of different clothing items were worn with sandals. Sandals were commonly standard school wear. When the the boys dressed up for church or other special events they commonly wore shoes. Actual regulations varies from school to school. Most English boys wore sandals with short trousers. This was true at both state and private chools. After the 1960s when wearing shorts at school began to decline so did school sandals. Some schools required shorts as part of a school uniform. In the 1980s as many schools began changing the uniform to long trousers, some schools continued to require sandals. This mostly occurred at private schools. Thus some boys also wore sandals with long trousers. Boys at elementary schools that did not have uniforms might also be seen wearing sandals and long trousers. School sandals were commonly worn with grey ankle socks and kneesocks. Much was less common for boys were white socks--either white ankle socks or white kneesocks. A British reader writes, "One thing I would say on reading this page's section on "clothing" is that I think that it was very rare to see a boy wearing sandals with long trousers. That is obvious really - sandals and shorts (even for those who didn't wear them as routine) being Summer wear. know that once it got to late Autumn and my Mum decided that it was time to get out our Winter underwear and so on our sandals were packed away along with any short socks or thin Summer shirts and we would not see them again until the Spring. You can probably see why I looked forward to the Spring! (although I hated the short socks which, thankfully, were not allowed at school)." HBC has noted boys at prep schools wearing sandals with long trousers. We note bioys wearing sandals with both knee socks and ankle socks and during the summer, children at some schools did not wear hosiery with sandals.
A range of different clothing items were worn with sandals. Sandals were commonly standard school wear. Thus they wre the standard school wear at many schools, although this varied over time and by school types. Thus sandals were worn with the every day school uniform.When the the boys dressed up for church or other special events they commonly wore shoes. Actual regulations varies from school to school.
We note a variety of conventions concerning a variety of specific garments. The most obvious garmnents associated with sandals are trousers and hosiery, but there were conventions associated with other garments as well. Here there were substantial varition from school to school.
Sandals were worn with blazers when the blazer was part of the every day school uniform. Commonly the day children wore their blazers to and from school. So the children on a normak school day wore blazers and sandals. Once at school, however, they would normally take off their blazers until ready to go home. Thus they would wear sandals at school without blazers. The situation was a little different when the children dressed up for special occassions. This usually mean caps, blazers, white shirts, and ties. When the the boys dressed up for church or other special events they commonly wore shoes rather than sandals. This varied a bit for girls. Actual regulations varies from school to school.
Children at many schools wore grey or other colored shirts for everyday wear. These are the shirts they would common wear with sandals. On special occassions white shirts were worn with blazers. Thus with white shirts, shoes were more common than sandals.
We note bioys wearing sandals with a variety of hosiery. We note boys wearing both knee socks and ankle socks. And during the summer, children at some schools did not wear hosiery with sandals. Knee socks seem to have been the most common hosiery worn with sandals. We note both plain grey knee socks abd school socks with colored bands in the school colors. This varied widely from school to school. Schools tended to have stricter rules about hosiery than footwear. The otther options, both ankle socks and no hoisiery, seem more of a seasonal option. Ankle socks for boys were normally plain grey socks, but we note some done with the colored bands nore common for knee socks. Girls often wire white socks rather than grey socks with sandals. Girls might wear sandals with tights.
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