Figure 1.-- A reader writes, "The classroom photograph here shows Polish kindergarten boys in some sort of game or school performance. Two of the boys wear tights--one in white tights, the other in dark tights. A third boy wears long trousers. Interestingly, the tights are not worn with short pants but simply suffice as combination trousers and stockings."

Polish children still commonly wore long stockings in the 1960s, at least the early 60s. Tights may have ppeared in the late 60s, but we are not sure. A reader has provided some photographs from a Polish Kindergarten showing the children wearing tights which of course shows that tights appeared in Poland during the 1960s. We are not yet sure just when in the 60s. Nor or we sure what age group beyonf Kindergarten children that wore them. We are guessing it was roughly the same as the age of children that wore long stockings. A reader writes, "The classroom photograph here shows Polish kindergarten boys in some sort of game or school performance (figure 1). Two of the boys wear tights--one in white tights, the other in dark tights. A third boy wears long trousers. Interestingly, the tights are not worn with short pants but simply suffice as combination trousers and stockings." Other Polish readers tell us that this was fairly common in Kindergaten. An American reader writes, "If it is a school play then boys could be wearing the tights as part of a costume which still occurs here in the United States. I recently saw a Middle school play (2006) and half the boys wore tights (play was Once Upon a Mattress). I understand the boys complained at first and at least two or three wore them for the play rather than pants." We know tights appeared in West Germany before Easter Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This photograph appears to have been taken in the 1960s, but can not be certain of this and we do not kow just when in the 1960s. A reader writes, "But I'm not certain when tights became available in places like Poland and Russia. I suspect that they might have been available in the mid-1960s. But they were more expensive and less economical than stockings, which is why stockings continued to be worn." We think the need to retool manufacturing plants may also have been a factor.

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Created: 7:43 PM 3/12/2007
Last updated: 12:46 PM 3/13/2007