Figure 1.--This oval format cabinent card shows an unidentified French boy wearing his sailor suit style First Communion suit. The boy wears a dark sailor suit with a white collar. It looks like mother has added a detachble stiff collar. The suit has long knee pants worn with knee socks. The fancy sleeve bow identifies the outfit as his First Communion suit. Notice the white gloves. We think there is a cap pn the seat of the chair. The high-top shoes are laceups. In America that would mean to th 1910s, but we are not yet worked up the chronological conventiomns for France. The portrait is undated, but definitely the early-20th century. We would guess about 1910. The studio was Hotys in Honfleur, a town in Normandy.

The Frech First Communion early-20th cntury suit styles probably followed the fashion shifts from knee pants and stockings to short pants and three-quarter socks. Formality for First Communion often meant long stockings, but we see a lot of French boys wearing knee socks. We are not sure why long stockings were less common uin France. We suspet that climate was a factor. Three-quater socks seem were more common in France for general wear, but we see many boys wearing knee socks or First Communion. Formal wear however, sometimes is slow to accept modern trends. Knee pants suits were worn by most boys for First Communion. Our archive is not large, but we see quite a number of French boys with First Communion suits that were dark suits worn with dark knee socks. We notice various styles. We notice regular suits, eton suits, sailor suits and some tuxedo like suits. White suits appear to be a trend which developed after World War I. It does not appear that white suits for First Communion were popular at the beginning of the 20th Century. This appears more of a fashion that developed in the inter-war period. Most all of the suits were stright-leg knee pants, but we also see some long pnts suits. Bloomer knickers were common at the time, but we mostly see tright-lg knee pants for First Communion. Short pants were less common before World War I, but became the most common style after the War in the 1920s.

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Created: 12:49 PM 5/13/2017
Last edited: 12:49 PM 5/13/2017