Figure 1.--These German brothers had their portrait taken together in 1933. They wear identical outfits including floppy bows. This is one of the last portraits we have seen with German boys wearing floppy bows.

We see German boys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wearing floppy bows. They do not seem as popular as in America, but the photographic recird shows many boys wearing them. We do not yet notice anyrging destinctive about the floppy bows in Germany. As in the rest of Europe, they seem to have been more a boys' than a girls' garment. Unfortunately because of the black and white photography, we do not know what color the bow was. We don't know if they were as popular as in the rest of Europe. The same of course is true as with other neckwear styles. Many of the German images we have show boys wearing floppy bows with Eton collars. A goof example is the boy here. Another good example is another portrait. We also notice boys on family outings wearing Eton collars with floppy bows. In some other countries we have noted floppy bows being worn with many other types of collars such as ruffled and lace collars. We are not yet able to fully assess German trends because of our still limited archive of images. Floppy bows continued to be commonly worn until World War I. We still notice some in the 1920s and even the early 30s. They were rarely seen by the mid-30s.

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Created: 12:26 AM 9/22/2008
Last updated: 12:26 AM 9/22/2008