Figure 1.-- This is a German primary class in the 1910s. We only note one boy wearing suspenders, but quite a few boys wear blouses. One boy wears a Lederhosen halter. |
We also see school-age boys commonly wearing suspenders in the early 20th century. This seems especially true for working-class children, respecially younger children. Older teenagers even from affluent families also wore them. We see little different as to suspender trends in the 1910s. Suspenders declined in popularity in part because of the development of suspender pants, with suspenders straps made in the same material as the pants rather then special elasticised material.
Suspenders were very popular with boys and young men during the 1930s and 1940s. We see boys still wearing suspenders in the 1930s, but there were several alteratives such as suspender pants and button-on clothing. Belts were not nearly as popular as they are today. We note suspenders adverized with stocking supporters. The style offered for boys was the clip-on style. Suspenders were still commonlybworn in the 1940s. School portraits from the 1940s show quite a few boys wearing suspenders with their pants. They seem to be mostly narrow suspenders with clipon devices to attach to the pants. At times suspenders have
been seen as old-fashioned, but they never totally disappeared. One U.S. reader reports, "I remember suspenders being worn by younger boys in the 1950s, but most school-age boys looked on them as old fashioned."Here there seem to have been differences even within countries. Suspenders largely disappeared as boys wear during the 1960s. By the 1960s they had
almost disappeared in most of the industrial countries--especially in the United States. They became, however, the signature item of clothing in skin-head culture during the 1960s and 1970s in Britain. Suspenders became very fashionable in the 1980s, but not for boys.
We also see school-age boys commonly wearing suspenders in the early 20th century. This seems especially true for working-class children, respecially younger children. Older teenagers even from affluent families also wore them. A good example is the Amerivan boys in a unidentified class. We note an American boy (1909) with suspenders and knickers working in a bowling alley. Younger boys commonly wore blouses, especially sailor blouses. Their pants might have been supported by underwaists in America or other devices or make shift arrangements. I'm not sure how common it was to wear suspenders under blouses.
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Suspenders continued to be widely wiorn in the 1910s. We see little different as to suspender trends in the 1910s. We continue to see many American and European boys wearing them. A good example is an American boy. A European example is a German boy wearing button-on suspenders. Notice that his suspenders are buttoned on the outside. More common were button ttachments on the inside of the trouser waist band. A major developmentb in the 1910s was World War (1914-18). Large numbers of men wore belts for the first time as part of a military uniform. This would have a major fashion impact during the post-War era.
Suspenders declined in popularity in part because of the development of suspender pants, with suspenders straps made in the same material as the pants rather then special elasticised material. Another factor was belts. I believe it was after World war I in the 1920s and 30s when it first became common to put belt loops on trousers. This needs to be confirmed. This is a little difficult to assess because boys commonly wore suit coats and sweaters. Suspenders were always worn under coats and jckers and usually worn under sweatrs. This makes it very difficult to determine if boys were wearing suspenders if all we have to go on are an old photograph. So far all the supenders we have found are the button type of suspenders. We are not yet sure about county trends, but they seem particularly common in Germany, but tht may be because we have more German. One factor that we have noted is that American boys wore suspenders, but did not wear them very commonly when not covered up by a jacket or sweater. We see several German boys wearing them with just suspenders. We note German boys wearing pants without belt loops, but belt loops were fairly standard on the pants American boys wore.
Suspenders were very popular with boys and young men during the 1930s and 1940s. We see boys still wearing suspenders in the 1930s. We see many boys in German school photographs wearing suspenders. Some examples are: unidentified class and unidentified class.
The boys seem to be wearing button-on suspenders. We also see other alteratives such as suspender pants and button-on clothing in German school photographs during the 30s. Belts were not nearly as popular as they are today. We note suspenders adverized with stocking supporters in the 1939 Sears catalog. The style offered for boys was the clip-on style. We are not sure when clip-on si=uspenders first appeared, but they seem quite common in America during the 1930s. We also note a German boy with button-on elastic suspenders and short trousers. This photograph of a younger German boy with a NAZI flag raises an interesting question. German boys very commonly wore suspenders in the 1920s and early 30s, but they are much less common by the end of the 30s. A factor here may be the Hitler Youth. You almost never see Hitler Youth boys wearing suspenders. In fact, the belt buckle was an important part of the uniform. And the belt included a cross shoulder strap. As virtually all German boys had to join the HJ and it becamne an important part of their lives, we suspect that this had the effect of reducing the popularity of suspenders.
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Suspenders were still commonly worn in the 1940s. We see a French boy in 1940 wearing suspendars (figure 1). Note that they are the old fashioned kind that forked. Each fork buttoned on to the inside of the pants waistline. An American reader writes, "I used to wear clip-on suspenders with short pants some of the time about 1939-41. I mention this in my personal experience page. These suspenders seem to be a destinctive style of the era. School portraits from the 1940s show quite a few boys wearing suspenders with their pants. They seem to be mostly narrow suspenders with clip-on devices to attach to the pants. Two examples are the Holy Cross School in New York and the Havelock School in Nebraska. These school portraits are a very good indicator of popular styles.
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At times suspenders have
been seen as old-fashioned, but they never totally disappeared. One U.S. reader reports, "I remember suspenders being worn by younger boys in the 1950s, but most school-age boys looked on them as old fashioned."Here there seem to have been differences even within countries. Another reader writes, "When I was at Harvard in the 1950s and at Bowdoin College in the 1940s suspenders were very fashionable for students and were worn a lot. Most Harvard professors wore suspenders, I think. I wore them with short pants also sometimes in the 1930s. I'm not sure, but I think there may have been a class connotation to suspenders. They were, I believe, more common
among working class and upper class boys than they were among middle-class boys. For working-class people suspenders were just a matter of practicality because they were considered more comfortable and didn't keep slipping down during strenuous activity. The upper-class association might have been because they were so common in Europe, and American upper-class families sometimes took their fashions from Europe. Maybe I say this only because suspenders
tended to be worn more in the northeast among the students I knew than in other parts of the country. When I was a student at Oxford University and had a couple of suits tailored in London, the tailor just assumed that I would want to wear the trousers with braces"--what "any gentleman would insist upon." That said, British boys by the 1950s no longer wore suspenders. The elastic snake-belt was especially popular at schools."
Suspenders largely disappeared as boys wear during the 1960s. By the 1960s they had
almost disappeared in most of the industrial countries--especially in the United States. Another reader writes, "I remember wearing suspenders, not a belt, with dress pants in the 1960s. Couldn't have been very old, 5 or 6. I think when I was in first grade, some other boys wore suspenders, too. To be sure, though, formost of my school years, boys wore belts, not suspenders." They became, however, the signature item of clothing in skin-head culture during the 1960s and 1970s in Britain.
A reader writes, "I think that the reason that suspenders are no longer as popular is that their practical advantages are no longer as importantant. When clothing was more expensive, trousers weren't expected to fit as precisely as they are now. They had to last while a boy grew or a man gained and lost weight, and so they needed to be able to be worn even when they were very loose around the waist.
Suspenders are more practical than belts when trousers are loose. As clothing became less expensive, it became more practical to wear only trousers that were a more exact fit. As guys switched from suspenders to belts, the preferred waist placement moved from the navel (or higher) down to the top of the hips. These days only elderly men wear trousers that come up to near their ribs, while some adolescents wear their trousers so low that they expose the tops of their rumps. Both look pretty stupid." A British reader has provided us details about skinhead fashions in the 1970s. One element of course was clip-on suspenders.
http://histclo.com
Suspenders became very fashionable in the 1980s, but not for boys. They now attract less attention. A reader writes, "In the United States, the most recent peak of popularity of suspenders for boys was 1987. Their popularity was based on the costumes worn by actor Don Johnson in the TV show Miami Vice. The characteristic that distinguishes a fad from a fashion is that a fad lasts for only a season or two, and is thereafter thought of as dated. A fashion persists for several years before going out of fashion. If it lasts for decades, it's no longer a fashion but rather a style. In summary, the suspenders of 1987 were a fad, the OP shorts of the 1980s were a fashion, while plaid flannel shirts are a style (like it or not)."
