Figure 1.--This snapshot of Prince Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran, was taken in 1963 shortly before President Kennedy's assaination. You can see Mrs. Kennedy in the background. The Prince Reza wears a white short pants suit with a matching white peaked cap and white knee socks. This is not how Iranian boys dressed, but an attempt to follow Western fashions. The cap is cut a little different than the caps American and British boys wore. The image is not dated, but we can date it by the Pribces's afe. He looks to be about 3 uears old and he was born (October 1960). The lady's dress is a good way of dating the image. Notice the Pribce's suit is a lapel jacket and not a junior Eton suit.
We still see short pants suits in the 1950s. We see them in both the photogtaphic record and mail order and store catalogs. This changed remarkably in the 1960s. Short pants suits began began to decline in popularity even in Europe. We still see some short pants suits in Europe but much less commonly. This was especially the case for younger boys many of hom began wearing long pants even when dressing up. And we begin to see far fewer older boys wearing short pants suit. This was especially true for younger teenagers. And weaing knee socks with short pants suits bcame less common. Short pnts suits wre less common in the United States than Europe. We still see see a few American boys wearing short pants suits, especilly boys from affluent families, but it was becoming less common even in early in the decade, and had largely disappeared by the end of the decade. One exception was Japan where boys continued to commonly wear short pants suits. Younger boys, however, still commonly wore short pants suits. And by the 60s the shorts began to become very short, especially for younger boys. Except in Japan there was a substntial chnge during the decade with far fewer boys wearing short pants suits by the end of the decade. This was the cade for lapel jaclet suits worn by school age boys. They did not totally disappear, but they were not very common. We vdo see some pre-school boys still wearing short pants suits, almost always the junior Eton suits without lapels.
