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We have little information at this time about the clothing worn in the Czech Lands of the Austro-Hungarianm Empire. Our basic assessment at this time is that they were very similar to Germany and Austria, at least in the cities. Some of the cities, had substantial German populations, On the northern fringe of the Czech lands, the cities might even had German majorities. So the influence of German fashions is easy to understand. We are less sure about the clothes worn in the countryside by the more ethnically dominant Czech population. We suspect that the city populations within the Empire wore essentially the same garments with similar styles and conventions. This assessment is complicated by the fact that much of the photographic record is from the cities which had substantial German populations. Thus many of the the children in the photographic record from the Czech lands may be ethnic Germans. This is further complicated by the fact that Germans living in the Czech lands may have been influenced by the Czechs. The first step in our pricess is to collect images from the Czech Lands. Information on garments and their relation to Austrian/German garments needs to be confirmed as we build our Czech archive. It was the country populations which may have worn more destinctive garments with local decorations that varied and became folk styles. This is unfortunately less well documented in the photographic record.
We do not know of any destinctive Czech headwear styles. Like other garmets , muc of what we see seems to come Germany and Austria. We notice urban Czech boys wearing the same hadwear styles we see in Vienna and other Autrian cities. Here we are talking about the same niddle-class and well to do boys we see in studio portraits. Sailor sytyles were popular, but as best we can tell not as popular as in Austria and Germany. We do not have a lot of information as our Czech archive is very limited and comes primarily from the 20th century. We do not have any information yet on earlier periods. Nor do we have any information yet on working class children.
Shirts and blouses were often covered up in the 19th century, al least by the well-to-do. The boys here are a good example (figure 1). .
We notice boys in the Czech lands wearing suits just like Austrian and German boys. We note a range of styles as well as different ants types. We see knee pants, knickers and long pnts depending on the chronology and age of the boys. As far as we can tell, there was no discernable difference in city fashions between the Czech Lands and Germany and Austria. Sailor suits were a popular choice for younger boys. They seem popular as early as the 1870s. The styling wa the same as in Austria and Germany. The dickie and scarf was a liitle different than the German styles we are used to, but styles were not as standardized in the 1890s as they became in the 20th century. Here we see a younger boy wearing a sailor suit and his older brother wearing a collar buttoning jacket, probably in the 1890s (figure 1). It is a little unusual because collar-buttoing jackets were usually single-breasted jacketrs. This boy weara a double-breasted collar-buttoning jacket, a style that became populatr for chaufers. Both boys wear knicker pants with their suits.
The types of pants worn by Czech boys in Bohemia seems similar to those worn by other European boys, at least boys in the urban centers. The urban population mostly wore knee pants as in the rest of Europe (18th century). There were no decicated children;s clothing at the time. Boys wiore smaller versions of their father's outfits. Dedicated boys' outfits appeared at the turn-of-the 19th century. The first such garment was the skeleton suit (1800). It was done with long pants at a time that men were still commonly wearing knee breeches. It would some time before men, at leasft men of his social stnding began wearing long pants. The working class began the trabsitiin earlier. They were called derisively the san-cullotes (wihout short pants meaning knee breeches) in France. The same pattern existed in Vienna an cities in the Austrian Empire. Men of status had began shiting to long pants (1820s). This all began to change at mid-century. We begin to see yonger boys wearing shortenened length pants. Most boy continued wearing long pants in the 1870s, but shortened-length pants gradually became more prevalent. Only in the late-19th century do they become more widely worn-both knee pants and knickers. The boys here are wearing knickers, we think in the 1890s (figure 1). By the turn-of the 20th century, they were standard boy's wear. We are less sure about the rural peasantry. Bohemia is where the Czech population was centered and was one of the most developed areas of the Austrian Empire. Much of the Empire's industry was located in Bohemia. Other areas of the Empire were largely agricultural with large peasant population with destive clothing syles. Unlike the urban population, there were no sharp destinctions between juvenile and adult dress.
We do not yet have a lot of information on hosiery in the Czech lands because of our limited archive. Our initial impression is that long stockings were dominant in the 19th century after we begin to see shirtened-length pants. We primarily see dark ling stockings, but iniially at mid century we see white long stockings (1860s), Notice the younger boy here who has long stockings made to look like socks. After the turn of the 20th century we begin to see sovks, at forst mostly-three-quarter socks, at least seasonally during the summer. Of course here we are talking about the affkluent urban populatiionn thar could aford the vciatb of a studio portarait. We susoect thatb in the countryside children mostklybwenhtb varefoot, atb lerast during the summer.
High-top shoes seem very common. Bo as common as in America, but still very common.
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