French Boys Clothes: Chronology--Early 20th Century (1900-1920)


Figure 1.-- The photograph was taken by unknown photographer around 1900-10 and shows a variety of children clothing during the Winter. I'm not sure why the children ar all mailing letters, perhaps they are to St. Nicolas. A reader writes, "Are you sure that the picture of the children in line fror the mailbox is from 1900-10? The bobbed hair on the girls looks to me more like the 1920s." Click on the image for discussion of the photograph.

Garments appearing in the late 19th century were still commonly worn in the early-20th century. The century old convention if younger boys wearing dresses was rapidly disappearing. Fancy outfits like Fauntleroy suits were still worn at the turn-of-the century, but becoming less common. Other popular outfits appear to be sailor suits and above the knee knickersSailor suits on the other hand continued to be enormously popular. The major development, however, was the appearance of the new short pants style. Knee pants and knickers were still common, especially with suits, but shorts pants appeared in the 1900s and grew in importance. appeared

Fauntleroy and Other Fancy Suits


Headwear

A well dressed boy appears to have always worn a sailor hat or a variety of stylish caps.

Dresses

Younger French boys still wore dresses. However I have few actual images of these dresses or little information on how common the practice was. I believe as in America it was still quite common for younger boys to wear dresses. The boy dresses in America were styled much more plainly than the ones for girls, although not all mothers followed that convention. I'm not sure if this was also true in France. As in America, however, the custom of dresses for boys was waining by the 1910s and except for the youngest boys disappeared after World War I in the 1920s.

Smocks

I'm not sure when French boys began to commonly wear smocks, but it probably began in the late 19th century. The new republican government which assumed power in the 1870s instituted them as democratic school wear. As they were then commonly worn at school they were more commonly worn at home. Most schools did not require uniforms, but the smocks served as a kind of uniform. Smocks continued to be commonly worn during the early 20th Century. Most school boys wore them, often to ages of 13-14 years. I am less sure how commonly they were worn at school and to what ages. Most boys wearing them to school wore them with short pants and kneepants, often with three-quarter length socks.

Kilts

Kilts do not seem to have been extensively worn. Little boys wore dresses and somewhay older boys short pants and knees pants, but the interim step of kilt suits common in America was less commonly worn. The Scottish Hihland kilt was also not commonly worn.

Tunics


Smocks

Smocks were still commonly worn by boys. Images on the Renoir family and Zola family at around the turn of the family show the children commonly wore smocks. Renoir often painted his children in smocks. Zola's son Jacques wore smocks even when he was 8 or 9 years old. It is not clear to me when the boys would wear their smocks nor do I know what they thought about smocks. They seemed to have been commonly worn around the home, but they also appear in outings to the park dressed in smocks. And of course boys wore blue smocks to school.

School Smocks

French elementary boys through the 1950s wore smocks to school, almost always black smocks. I'm not sure who issued the requirement, the local schools or national educational authorities. The smock does, however, appear to be very commonly worn by French school children during this period. I know less about what a French boy would do after school. Would he take his school smock off? Change into another smock for play or go without a smock after school? While smocks were commonly worn by French schoolboys in the early 20th Century, but not by all schoolboys. I'm not sure if the French Government changed the regulations, however, clearly some boy were not wearing smocks to school. One interesting account from 1900 describes a French boy who began the lycee wearing a sailor suit and to his embarassment--with the long curls that his mother dearly loved. France also had an important Catholic school system. I'm not sure about the uniform or dress requirements at these schools. I do not know if the Catholic boys were more or less likely to wear smocks. The smock was generally worn with short pants and often a beret. The image of a boy going off to school in a beret, smock, and book satchel on his back is a nostalgic one for many French people. Most boys wearing smocks during this period appear to be wearing kneepants or longish short pants, usually with long, but not knee socks. Few boys wore knickers or long pants with school smocks.

Juvenile Suits/Outfits

We see a variety of suits/outfits worn by French boys in the early-20 century. Here we are talking about suits or suit-like outfits boys wore when dressing up. Three of the most popular styles were the Fauntleroy suit, sailor suit, and shirt suit. Fauntlroy suits were declining in popularity. The major era for Fauntleroy suits was the late-19th century. We still see some in the very early-1900s, but mostly we see Fauntleroy touches in the early-20th century more commonly than than actual suits. Sailor suits were a different matter. They continued to be popular in rhe early-20th century, perhps even more than the late-19th century. We see numerous images of boys dressed up in sailor suits. Shirts suits seem popular styles, at least in post cards. They seem less common in actul pgotogrphs which is of course a beter metric of actual prevalence. Most of the juvenile outfits were done with knee pants or bloomer knickers. Short pants were were more of a post-World War I trend in the 1920s. They were usually worn with socks (often three-quater socks), but we see some long stockings for really formal wear. These outfits were generally worn by school-age boys. Thee were different age conventions for the various syles. About 13 years are so, boys began wearing more adult-looking styles, but often with some juvenile touches. The age conventions varies somewht from family to family. There were also social-class conventions involved.

Shirt-like Garments

We have begun to assess French boys' shirt like garments in the early-20th century. This would mean blouses, shorts, and shirt waits as well as detachable collars. Blouses and shirt waists still seem common at the turn-of-the 20th century, we do not yet have detailed information.

Blouses

We note many French boys wearing blouses in the early-20th century. Fancy blouses for younger boys became quite popular in the late-19 century. They were often worn with suits like Fauntleroy suits. After the turn-of-the century they were increasingly worn without a suit jacket, althouhgh jackets were still much more common than today, which means we often do not see the shirt-like common other than the collar. It was increasingly felt less necessary for a boy to be dressesd up in a full suit. Thus a number of boys' outfit were worn with with shirts or blouses. We commonly see them worn with knee pants and than short pants. This was a common outfit for middle-class boys. These blouses could be quite fancy. Many were back buttoning, even for boys. They were mostly worn with short pants. A very popular blouse style was the sailor blouse. A good example of blouse and other styles in a church scene about 1910. Notice all the sailor blouses. Most of these images we have seen are from postcards. and many of these fancy blouses had longish hair, sometimes quite long hair falling to the boy's shoulders. We do not think this was very common and this is confirmed by the phographic record. Post cards we believe often did portrayed how mothers wanted to dress their boys and not always how the boys were ctually dressed. We hope to add more actual photographs to our French archive to better assess actual French blouse trends.

Shirts

We are not sure about the populatity of boys' shirts in French during the early-20th centyry. This will ewquire more additions to our french archive to assess.

Eton collars

We see boys from middle-class fdamilies wearing Eton detachable collars when dressing up. Some were the classic Eton style with pointed tips. There were a variety of styles for these detchable collars. Eton-style xollaea seem the most commm but we see varirty of styles and collar styles. There were alsp Peter Pan styles with roinded collars. These were collars for dressing up. We are not yet sure about the age conventions. Ot was not a school=related syle like Britain, but a style for dressing up and s[eial occasions.

Pants


Long panrs


Knee pants

Older French boys in the late 19th century were mostly wearing knee length suits with long stockings. Knee pants continued into the 20th Century, but by the 1910s were being repaced by short pants and knickers. Knee pants being worn by older boys and increasingly passing from the dashion scene.

Short pants

A new style appeared in France during the early 20th Century. I think it was destinctly French, but never became widely recognized as such. These outfits appeared in a wide range of styles. Some were very plain. Others had sailor styling. Others were very fancy with lace and ruffle trim. They were made with both kneepants and the new short pants style. They were usually worn with three-quarter length socks and a wide range of shoes--including strap shoes with the dressier, fancy outfits. Some of the images of children in short pants look to some HBC visitors to be girls because of the long hair and in some cases hairbows. HBC believes that virtually the children wearing short pants in the early 20th Century would have been boys, regardless of the hair styles. Girls at the time did not wear pants, short or long. An HBC contributor after reading this page looked in his book on French childrens fashions to see if I could fine any girls in pants or shorts. The illustrations whet to 1912 without showing a single girl wearing pants or shorts. The closest was a young girl at the beach wearing a bathing suit with bloomers.

Rompers


Hosiery

A wide range of shoes and stockings were worn by French boys in the early 20th Century. Stockings extending above the knee became less commin and shorter socks became more common. Primarily younger boys and girls wore short socks. Three-quarter socks. Three-quarter length socks became very common in France during the early 20th Century. Most boys wearing the new short pants wore them with three-quarter length socks. This included a wide range of outfits from school clothes to dress-up outfits. Knee socks appeared in France in the late 1900s, primarily after the introduction of the new scouting movement. The short pants and kneesocks introduced by Baden Powell in England was adapted in France ans most other countries--except America where Scouts mostly wore knickers. As Scouting grew so did the popularity of kneesocks in France, especially during the cooler weather. It was after World War I in the 1920s that French boys began to wear kneesocks most commonly. Long stockings became less popular in France during the 1900s. Available images suggest that by the 1910s they were increasingly less worn. Some solder boys might wear them with a suit, but fewer younger boys. I am not positive about the colder winter months as I have so few images.






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Created: January 5, 2003
Last updated: 6:15 PM 2/16/2016