Playboy magazine once smugly described its readership as "young
urban males who have it made." The phrase surfaces as
I remember lurking around schoolyards and soccer fields covertly observing
my own young urban male and his peers. Boys at play, they may not yet
have it made, but they do seem constantly to be on the make. Their
clothes-typically grubby, slavishly
conformist or eccentric at different
stages-are more important to them
than popular mythology admits. They
learn all too early that clothes are a
climber's short cut to lofty social position, a route that is easier on the
digestion than eating spiders and more
diplomatic than tripping the teacher.
At the beginning, a mother is briefly but totally in charge, and a boy's
infant wardrobe necessarily reflects what she construes as her own social
identity. My son was born in 1960
within few hours of John-John Kennedy. Nannyless in Camelot, I
struggled with the boucle suits with
tasteful appliques (hand wash in mild
soap), the classic broadcloth shirts
(use a hot iron) and the all-wool
English sailor suits (dry-clean only)
that Jackie and I favored. My amiable
child couldn't have cared less what
I did to him or to myself as long
as he wasn't switched onto Ready
and Holding, that tight-lipped quarter
hour of suspended animation before
any dress-up event.
His faith in a benevolent despotism
was shaken when I perpetrated a
pair of lederhosen just like those his
father had been photographed in when
he too was curly-headed and 3. We
discovered together that those his father had been photographed in when he too was curly headed and 3. We discovered together that those gemmütliche
buttons attached by leather thongs balk in a split second emergency, and that after the deluge Leder transmutes into soggy bacon rind. Further attempts on my part to inflict
the lederhosen found us eyeballing, as Ronald Reagan is wont to say.
A certain adversary relationship had
been established and was to continue. But as long as I could still cajole
him into clothes that weren't actively
uncomfortable, he'd indulge my penchant for socks that matched and shoes
that were tied (with massive double
knots like twin bumblebees). As one
veteran mother and teacher commented to me, "Small boys like clothes
all right, but they don't like to think
about them. Once they're on in the
morning, that's it."
I recently invaded the privacy of a mother studying beside me while
we both waited for a school pageant to begin. She, a third-year law student,
was deep in some Blackstonian tome when I asked her what her 4-year-old
wore to school. "Anything he wants as long as it's clean," she replied
tersely, and turned back to her book.
Preoccupied student mothers, working women on tight schedules, old
campaigners shell-shocked into acquiescence--we all these days sooner or
later (these days, sooner) stop trying so
hard to impose our taste on squirmy,
obstinate subjects. Usually we save
face by retaining the veto and by
never surrendering totally. "Absolutely no!" alternates with "O.K., go ahead
and wear it, but you'll have to take a
sweater."
So we all settle down to the hamburgers on the clothing menu: the
inexpensive, all-American, wholesome
jeans, corduroy Levi's, striped long-
sleeved jerseys, T-shirts, snorkel
jackets, rubberized canvas raincoats and camping shorts (with the required
zipperism and pocketry). I may be a simple dupe, but it seems to me that
American mass marketing has done as well with boys' ordinary clothes as it
has with housewives' small electric appliances. Like irons and toasters
(unlike cars and washers), boys' basics usually require few repairs and
last long enough. I once bought a pair of size-8 blue jeans from a Roman
pushcart, which should have been as romantic as going to a trattoria instead of McDonald's. The grim fact was that the jeans were expensive; whenever washed they emitted ink like
a squid; and the chain stitch holding them together unraveled, seam by
seam, with striptease efficiency. Pass the hamburgers, please.
Since a small boy's everyday wardrobe is so standardized, a young individualist often begins to assert himself by donning an unforgettable hat, a
trademark of his own. Heaven for that kind of exhibitionist is displaying
what no one else has. In years of
surveillance, I've seen them come and
I've seen them go, the great and
the near-great: the Australian bush
hat, the silk topper, the deerstalker,
the pith helmet, the Southwestern
sombrero, Dan'l Boone raccoon and
one bizarre gondolalike number, said
to have come from the University
of Padua. The right hat transforms
the boy, he thinks, as dramatically
as a crown elevates the Prince of
Wales.
There was a time when small guests
appeared at birthday parties resplendent in
Eton suits, miniature tweeds,
Or tiny blazers, kneesocks and proper oxfords. In tasteful (and well-heeled) New York drawing rooms, they may still, but in doggedly unpretentious
Cambridge, Mass., almost anything goes.
I recently attended an 8-year-old nephew's birthday party and came
away with the following general observations: (1) When any
small boy leans over, he exposes an ellipse of bare
back identical to any other small boy's; (2) no belt ever comes with
enough holes and unless customized will stand out from the body like
a hula hoop supported by trouser loops; (3) hips are an acquired characteristic.
The guests wore school clothes (the better kind, without knee patches)
but featured one festive accessory each. For example, a touching little
fellow, the youngest of three brothers, wore a hand-me-down clip-on bow
tie with one defective clip. The tie clung on for dear life at a rakish
angle, for all the world like Harold
Lloyd hanging by one hand from a
flagpole over Fifth Avenue. Happily,
no one was self-conscious, no one
was critical.
The first tearful evidence of peer
pressure came in my son's kindergarten April. We set out cheerfully
enough to perform that traditional
rite of spring, buying new sneakers,
only to find that the "in" footgear
worn by the Big Boys in his class
simply wasn't manufactured in his
small size. That year's high fashion
was macho black basketball sneakers,
the high kind with white rubber moons
on the ankle bones which chimpanzees
always wear in research projects that
raise them as children.
The third- or fourth-grader has a
most pragmatic and easygoing attitude
toward his clothes. He wants to be
comfortable and he'll choose the garment that will be (A) warm or (2)
cool. He'll wear the same threadbare
plaid shirt five days a week if it's
still able to perform its basic thermal
function. In orangish hiking boots,
jeans and parka, his winter look is
unpretentious lumberjack; and in summer he's a smallish Huck Finn.
When a boy is around 10, a new
awareness of quality and style arises.
An early symptom is the scorning
of supermarket Hong-Kongers (or even
of respectable Keds) in favor of the
ultra sneakers, the royal blue suede
or white kid sport shoes that cost
six times as much and are apparently
equipped with specialized treads for
every human activity. A salesman recently cautioned me against one ultra
sneaker model because it was 'I??.
Jane Davison writes from experience,
Related Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[Return to The main 1960s page]
[United States]
[Short pants suits]
[Long pants suits]
[Jacket and trousers]
[Eton suits]
[Shortalls]
[Jeans]
[T-shirts]
[Socks]