Knee Pants: Terminology


Figure 1.--The American Ucanttear 1909 catalog offered these "knee pants suits" which were clearly knicker suits. The ad copy below each suit did refer to them as knicker suits. They weew available in sizes 8-16 years. One suit included a pair of "straight" pants in addition to the knickers and another came with "regular" pants. By 1909, knickers had generally replaced kneepants in America, although they continued to sold for some years, generally as pants for younger boys.

HBC as a normal course prefers to adopt the terminology used in contemporary sources to describe the various garments and fashions aseessed. This is not, however, always possible. In many cases advertisers and fashion commentators were not always consistent in the use of the various terms. Kneepants were not always called kneepants. Even more confusing, the term kneepants was sonmetimes applied to knickers and short pants. This to avoid confusion, we have had to adopt a single term and use that rather than the terms used in contemporary sources. The catalog page shown here shows what are clearly knicker suits, yet they are called kneepants. They may have used this term when both knickers and kneepants were offerred. Various terms other than kneepants were used, including "straight" and "regular" pants. Examples like this made it necessary to adopt generally accepted terms rather than just follow the terms used in each of the various contemprary catalogs and publications from which we have drawn images. Note that one of the suit included a pair of kneepants which they refer to as "straight" pants in addition to the knickers. And another suit had kneepants ("regular" pants) rather than knickers.






Christopher Wagner






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Created: April 14, 2002
Last edited: April 14, 2002