* English boy clothes -- headwear chronology 20th century
English Boys' Headwear: Chronology--The 1920s
Figure 1.--We are nor sure what the group here is, we thought at a beach resort. It does show how common headwear still was and the barious styles worn. The photograph is not dated, but looks to us like it was taken in the late-1920s. The school-age boys all wear school caps. Notice the soft hat the youngest boy in the knit outfit wears. We are not sure what to call his hat. The number here is the identifying code of the street photographer who took the photograph. Put your cursor on the image to see the rest of the group. For some reason I can't get the mouse over feature to work. But you can see the rest of the group by clicking here. A British reader provides a better assesment. He tells us us, "It looks like a group of holiday makers arriving at a holiday camp. [Provanly located akong the coast.] Their is a boy carrying a suit case. The second clue is that chairs have been set up for group photographs. The number on the picture as how a photograph can be ordered from the camp's pictorial display board." Note that in the 1920s that they would have been arriving by train, not cars.
Headwear was still standard during the 1920s. Adults and children still commnly wore headwear when leaving home. English boys almost always wore caps rather than hats. Hats were rare for boys. And we do not see much diversity. The peaked school cap was ubiqutos after World War I (1920s). There were different colors and patterms (segments and circles), but the basic design was the same. A bright green caps with yellow braid was chosen for Wolf Cubs. The school cap was not only worn to school, but it was the principal cap boys wore where ever they went. It was worn after school for play or outings with parents to shops or church. School caps were also worn for receational outings to parks or for vacations. Interestingly while boys had virtually this one type of headwear, girls had quite a range of different styles. The peaked cap becme a kind of iconic symbol of British boys. They were done in many different colors at private schools, but less so at state schools which did not have uniforms. Older boys might wear various styles of flat caps. Women wore various forms of the ubiquitos cloche hats, an iconic symbol of the 20s. Men wore both hats and caps. The choice was largely a social class matter. Upper and middle-class men wore hats, both bowlers and hambergs. Straw boaters might be worn during the summer. Working-class men commonly wore flat caps. This holiday camo group photo gives is a great view of headwear worn by children and adults (figure 1). Just about everyone is wearing some kind of headwear. And that the boys are wearing their school caps even when on summer vacation. Alao note the chilly weather even during the summer.
