Figure 1.--.

While most clothes are decorative to some extent, most garments have primarily practical purposes. A few items are basically decorative items without any real practical purpose. Some of the few purely decorative items are neckwear and sashes. Neckwear was of course much more common than sashes. And we see several different types of neckwear from flamboyant floppy bows to modest string ties. Bows were primarily neckwear, but also employed for other decorative purposes. Sashes were much less common., but we do see boys wearing them. Another decoraive item of some importance in Germany was tassles. Other items include belt buckles, belts, feathers, poms, and a number of other items. None of these items are exclusively German items, but belts and tassels were particularly popular in Germany. Belts are of course practical items, but we see quite a number of Germany boys wearing them as purely decorative items.

Bows

Bows for boys were primarily neckwear, but also employed for other decorative purposes. Infant boys might have small hair bows, but not older boys. Bows were not as extenively used for boys as in America and several other countries. Bows were much more common for girls. This was especially true for hair bows. Girls' hair bows were very common in the early-20th century. These hair bows for girls could be quite large.

Belts

Belts are of course practical items, but we see quite a number of Germany boys wearing them as purely decorative items.

Fashions

Belt Buckles

Neckwear

We do not have much information on the neckwear German boys have worn. We do not know of any destinctive German neckwear styles. We have noted boys wearing folk costumes with string ties, but we note no destinctive German neckwear styles. The neckwear worn by German boys in indestinguishable from the styles worn in the rest of Europe. We do not yet know have enough information on Germany to know if there was any differences in the conventions and prevalence associated with neckwear in Germany. We see boys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wearing floppy bows. We do nt know if they were as popular as in the rest of Europe. The same is true as with other neckwear styles.

Poms

Sashes

Sashes were much less common item than neckwear for boys. This as the case in Germany and other countries. American boys might wear sashes with Fauntleroy suits. But the Fauntleroy suit was not very common in Germany. Most of the sashes we see are younger children wearing dresses. Here we can often not determine gender. And we thus are not sure about the gender connotations of the sashes. We do not know if they were genfer neutral or nore common for boys or girls. Color may have been a factor, but we can not assess color in the black-and-white portraits. We also note patterns, especially plaid. Again we do not know if there were zny gender commotations.

Tassles

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main Costume page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossary] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: 3:32 AM 4/19/2010
Last updated: 3:32 AM 4/19/2010