Figure 1.--Romper gender convention varied from country to country. Here a little girl wears a romper suit. I'm not sure about her brother, but he looks to be wearing romper pants as well. Unfortumately were are not sure whay country these images come from. It could be Germany or the Netherlands. We are also unsure about the date, but would guess about 1930. |
Rarely does a popular garment have such radically diiferent gender comventions in different countries. HBC is at this time has only limited information about gender conventions for rompers. We believe that they have varied over time. There were also substantial differences between countries. In some countries like France only boys wore rompers while in other countries such as America rompers werre worn by both boys and girls. Here we have cimpiled considerable information on France, but our information on other countriesc is still quite limited. Unlike other garments where we have reports from readers, many readers do not recall wearing rompers because of their ages. Thus we have fewer first hand accounts. The conventions concerning rompers in each country of course has changed over time thus complicating matters. At this time we have only limited information on these conventions and changes over time..
In America, HBC believes that rompers were initially intended for boys, but came to be worn by both boys and girls. This was especially true for the early rompers worn for play. I'm less sure about the dressier styled rompers. Probably a girl would be nore likely to wear a dress for formal occasions. HBC has, however, very little information on rompers, so this assessment is highly speculative at this stage. We hope to obtain more information from period catalogs. Much later romper suits appeared exclusively for girls. I'm not sure when this began, but I remember seeing these suits in the 1950s. It presumably occurred after romper-like bloomer suits became a standard type of girls' gym uniform. Eventually of course rompers became a style for infants, both boys and girls.
HBC has no information on gender conventions for rompers in Belgium. We believe, however, that they were similar to those in France.
A French reader tells HBC that in France girls did not wear rompers which were exclusively an outfit for little boys. They were normally worn by pre-school boys, but HBC has noted rompers made for boys up to 7 years old. Boys wore both play and dressy styled rompers. Girls even for play would wear little dresses. A French reader tells us that this was the accepted convention for rompers. There was nothing preventing a mother from dressing a pre-school girl in rompers if she wanted to, but it was rarely done. The one exception was that mothers on summer holiday would dress girls in "barboteuse bain de soleil". This was a romper sunsuit commonly worn at the beach. The standard one-piece romper, however, was in France exclusively a boys' garment. This convention continued through the 1960s. Eventually as in America, rompers became a style for infants, both boys and girls.
HBC has noted German boys wearing rompers. It appears to have been a style primarily for boys, but we can not definitively state that.
HBC has noted Dutch boys wearing rompers. It appears to have been a style primarily for boys, but we can not definitively state that.
No information available at this time.
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