Note: This fascinating American account prepared by Bruce McPherson
is especially interesting because the author also lived in France,
providing details on both American and French boys' clothes.
The strongest memories that I have about the clothes I wore as a boy was
the short pants I wore. I grew up in short pants. Well, that it isn't quite true. Unlike Japanese, Australian, or
English contemporaries, I didn't spend my entire boyhood in short pants --
not that my parents wouldn't have been delighted if I had and not that I
didn't secretly want to. But I did wear short pants a great deal more than
was common in the early 1960s; the teasing I endured (and compliments I
got!) may have been unique to an age when short pants for dress-up wear
were still fairly common but were becoming victims of changing notions
about appropriate boyswear. And since, thanks to my father's wanderlust,
we moved around quite a bit--five cities in eight years, including Paris
--my experiences may shed a bit of light on regional variations too. This
HBC website has a lot of fantastic information on different national
styles, but back 30 years ago, styles differed across the States as
well. It's not like today where boys from San Diego to Bangor all wear the
identical oversize T-shirts and baggy gym shorts. Back in 1960, a boy
could head for an elite, private East Coast school in a navy blue blazer,
bowtie, gray flannel short pants, and navy blue knee socks and provoke no
reaction--or at least nothing that registered in his memory. That same
boy in that same outfit a year later would cause a minor riot on the
streets of a small Western town.
My experiences in Washington, D.C., Colorado, Hawaii, France, elsewhere
in Europe, and other places provide some insights on different styles of boys clothes worn
during the 1960s. Please click on the headings for details:
Family background: My parents
cme from families with considerable social status. We didn't have a lot
of money, but they thought that boys from nice families wore short pants.
So I wore shorts regardless of what the other boys wore.
Private School in Washington, D.C.:
My parents were political liberals but "lifestyle" conservatives.
When they went out in public, they dressed nicely, and they dressed their
son nicely too. That meant shortpants suits
or blazer-and-shorts; ankle socks in the summer; knee socks in the winter.
When it came time to enroll me in school.
Public school in Colorado: Boulder,
Colorado was not a place in 1960 where you could wear short pants
to school and not expect to provoke a reaction. My parents hoped to get me
into the University School (where students in the college of education did
their practice teaching under seasoned veterans), but it was full and we
would have to wait for a vacancy. In the meantime, I was packed off to the
local public school down the block to begin 2nd grade. Well, when I showed
up in my shortpants suit, a minor riot ensued.
Scouts: I wanted to be Cub Scout,
but my parents didn't like the idea. Interestingly Cub Scouts, at least
where I lived, didn't wear short pants and knee socks like Cubs in most
other countries. Scouts by the 1960s, however, were beginning to wear
shorts much more than in the past.
Heading for the Tropics: My father
accepted a Visiting Professorship at the University of Hawaii; I went to
6th grade at a school not too far from the University. My
principal, my teacher, and more than half my classmates were ethnically
pure Japanese. The rest were a mixture of Chinese, Korean, children of
mixed marriages. Oddly enough, given the year-round warm
weather, shorts were never worn to school. Standards of neatness, however,
were considerably higher than they had been in Laramie.
Touring Europe: We spent the summer of
1964 touring Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and the British
Isles before settling down in Paris. Every where we went,
I saw European boys in short pants--often strikingly short, sometimes
with knee socks, neckties and jackets. When my parents saw the way
European boys were dressing, I was instantly put back into shorts.
School in France: When we finally got
to Paris, my parents put me into a public boys'
school near our apartment. The French system differs from the American in
many respects; one of those is that kids do not all advance in lock step.
Given my nearly non-existent French, the school thought it best if I went
into the equivalent of 6th rather than 7th grade, but boys in my class
ranged from 9 to 13. On the
first day of classes, it was almost the reverse of the situation back in
Laramie--I was one of the few boys in long trousers. My parents had
relented when I said I wanted to start school in long pants until we found
out what the style of dress in school was for boys my age; I had enough
going against me, hardly speaking the language, and I didn't need to stand
out by being oddly dressed. Long pants in a boy my age and height were not
all that odd, but I was in a distinct minority. So back into shorts I
went.
Postscript and Teen Years: After
the year in Paris, we moved to Albuquerque, where I attended 8th-12th
grades. Shorts were never worn to school, except for a special "Bermuda
shorts day" held one spring as part of a fund raiser. I remember musing in
the non-descript, mediocre junior high where I went to 8th grade what kind
of reaction I would provoke if I showed up dressed the way I had the
previous spring.
Author: Bruce McPherson
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