Figure 1.-- Here we see three unidentified biys, perhaps brothrs. They look to be about 7-14 years old. All three wear knickers with black long stockings. The snapshot is undated, but we would guess was taken in the early-1920s. We are not sure about the cae, but identuificatiion woukd help date the image.

After World War I, we see some boys wearing knee socks, but long stockings continued to be the principal hosiery worn by boys through much of the 1920s, until the end of the decade when we see knee socks becoming increasingly popular. We still see long stockings at the end of the decade, but much less commonly than at the beginning of the decade. We are not entirely sure why this occurred, but believe that a major factor is that boys don't like fussy clothing items. And long stockings, at least in America, required complicated stocking suporters to hold the stockings up. Knee socks in sharp contrast made getting dressed much less complicated. We rarely see ankle socks during the 20s. Knickers in particular were almost always worn with long stockings or knee socks. You never see boys wearing knickers with ankle socks which became fairly common in the late-1930s. Younger boys often wore three-quarter socks, at least during the summer. We still don't see as lot of ankle socks in the 1920s, but we do not know what kind of hosiery the boys with long pants were wearing.

Created: 7:09 PM 10/31/2022
Last updated: 7:09 PM 10/31/2022