Figure 1.--Here we see a scene in a German home during the inter-War, probably the 1930s. An unidentified boy is sitting on his grandmother's lap. He looks to be about 6 years old and wearing a new short pants suit. He is lso wearing new long stockings. We do not sue this much in Western Europe (Britain, France, and Italy). We do see it in northern Europe (Scandanavia and Poland) as well as Canada.

We also note quite a few younger boys wore long stockings, especially during the winter. This varied from family to family. Boys up to about 11 or 12 might wear long stocking during the winter, but it was less common for older boys. After World War II, long stockings began to become less common, and essentially disappered after the mid-50s. Here we see a German boy with his dog in 1954 (figure 1). Notice the short pants suit worn with brown long stockings. The boy seems to be about 11 or 12 years old. I am not sure if this is his normal clothing for school. I think the suit with shirt and tie indicates more dress-up clothing, perhaps for church on Sunday. We have some personal accounts from German readers who point out that even after boys had switched to wearing long trousers to school, their parents insisted on the more conservative style of short trousers with long stockings for church and dress-up occasions. We see another image of a unidentified boy wearing a short pants suits with long stockings and a Schirmmutze in 1962.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: 10:54 PM 10/15/2018
Last updated: 10:55 PM 10/15/2018