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An importan problem presented by pants/trousers was how to hold them up. This is a special problem for boys, especially younger boys who are slender and do not yet have defined waislines. There were a number of possible sollutions. Various types of pants had features specifically designed for suspension. The most common were buttons for suspenders, button holes for button-on tops, and belt loops. Suspender pants (with the straps permanently sewed on) were not as popular in America as in Europe. An exception was bib-front versions like overalls and bib-front pants for younger boys. Pants had buttons for suspenders, commonly on the inside of the waistband. Clasp were a mid-20th century innovation. Other had button holes that accomodated buttons on button-on jackets and shirts. We note jacket-like tops in the mid-19th century. Shiets and blouses were more common by the turn-of the century. The buttons then appeared on the outside of the pants at the waistband. We are not sure yet when belt loops were first introduced, but we begin to see them commonly after World War I in the 1920s.
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