* Austrian boys clothes -- skirted garments








Austrian Boys' Skirted Garments


Figure 1.--This CDV portrit shows a Vienna boy and his big sister. We are not sure how to decribe the garment. It might be a sailor kilt suit with a dicky matching the pleated skirt. (Notice how his big sister's dress also has a pleated skirt.) We think more likely he is wearing a striped dress that had a pleated skirt along with a sailor jacket. Notice that his long stocking seem to match his jacket. This is definitely a 19th century image. The dealer dates it to the 1880s.

Austrian boys as in other countries wore a range of skirted garments over time. We have collected some information. We see mostly dresses and tunics in the images we have collected so far. We have found some 19th century images. Tunics seem popular in early-20th century commercial postcards. We have not found any examples of Highland kilts or kilt suits among our Austrian images. Although we do see some dresses that look a bit like kilt suits. Nor do we see smocks. We do see pinafores, but only for girls. We do see boys wearing pinafores. Our 19th century Austrian archive is very limited and thus our ability to assess skirted garments is very limited. The 19th century was the last decade in which this convention was common. After the turn-of-the-20th century when photographic images are more abundant and we see that this convention was rapidly declining. We do still see Austrian boys wearing tunics in the early-20th century. This declined by the time of World War I and we see very few examples after the War in the 1920s. And we can say this convention had largely disappeared because we have a large enough archive to make a valid assessment. As far as we can tell, Austrian and Germam conventions are very similar.

Dresses

Younger Austrian boys like other European boys wore dresses. We so not yet have much information on this convention in Austria or the dress styles Austria boys wore over time. We do not how the convention of younger boys wearing drsses compared with other countries in general and Germany in particular. Nor do we know much about chronological trends. We see some boys in the 19th century wearing drsses. We think boys wore dresses throughout the 19th century, although we have no information on the early 19th century, The photographic record clearly show boys wearing dresses in the late-19th century. There are, however, few 20th century examples. We are not sure how to describe the type of dress see here. We might call this a belted dress. Notice the bodice is different than the skirt part. Also notice the skirt is pleated. Our Austrian archive is still very limited. This makes it difficult to assess trends like age conventions. The boy here is apparently Pejn H. from Graz in 1891. We are not sure what boys wore under their dresses. The most common under garments seem to be petticoats and pantalettes. Note that the boy here wears knee pants with the dress. This was more common with tunic suits. We also do not yet know much about gender trends, namely to what extent the there were dresses specifically styled for boys. We also have little information on the accompanying garments like headwear. We notice some boys with added collars and bows. Long stockings seem common.

Tunics

Tunics were a popular garment for boys in both Europe and America. We believe Austrian boys wore tunics in the 19th century, but can not yet confirm it because our Austrian 19th century archive is still limited. We believe that Austrian boys commonly wore tunics in the early- and mid-19th century, but have few details at this time. Our impression is tht tunics were more of an upper- and midle-class style. We note the Redtenbacher boys in a portrit by Gabriel Decker duing the mid-19th century. The two older boys wear tunics, one is a plain brown tunic, the other a Scotish plaid. The waists utilize cords rather than the more military-looking belts. A second Decker portrait of an unidentified father and son pained at about the same time shows another tunic, this gime a blue checked tunic. We do see boys wearing tunic suits in the early-20th century (figure 1). Younger Austrian boys may have wore tunic suits in the early-20th century. Caution is necessary in using commercial postcards as fashion indicators. They may have been a better indicator of how mothers wanted to dress their sins and how ordinary Austrian boys were actually dressed. We have found some actual portraits, but our Austrian archive is not large enough to know how common they were. HBC believes that the primary fashion influence for this style was France. It was also a popular style in America. Austrian boys, like French boys commonly wore tunics with with short socks, unlike American boys who more commonly wore long stockings when not wearing long pants.

Smocks

We have no information about Austrian boys wearing smocks. It does not appear to have been common in the 20th century, but we are less sure about the 19th century. Somcks were very common in France and Italy, but for some reason we do not see them in Austria and Germany to any extent.

Pinafores

A HBC reader tells us that the pinafore was commonly worn by Austraian girls through the 1950s. It was worn by both little girls and women over their dresses. It was called "Eine Schürze " Normaly the pinafotes in Austria was white. We do not note boys wearing them.








HBC






Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Austrian pages:
[Garments] [Choirs] [School uniforms] [Lederhosen]



Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main Austrian garment page]
[Return to the Main country skirted garment page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [Essays] [FAQs] [German glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]



Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing national pages:
[Return to the Main Austrian boys clothes page] [Return to the Main countries page]
[Australia] [Belgium] [England] [France] [Germany] [Ireland] [Italy] [Japan] [Korea] [Mexico] [New Zealand] [Scotland] [United States]




Created: 11:51 AM 5/31/2016
Last updated: 11:52 AM 5/31/2016