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We are gradually developing family sections for the various European countries. There are considerble differences between both family and fashion trends through World War II. It is oftenpossible to identify major countries, although smaller countrie are more difficult. And they are affected to various degrees by trends in the larger countries. A factor here is that until World War I, three major empires dominated most of Europe (Austria, Hermany, and Russia). And the Ottoman Empire dominated the Balkans until the mid-19th century. The imperial power affected fashions in the citie, but in the countryside more trafitional local styles often prevailed. The majpr political changes during the 20th cntury had further consequences. Of course ethnicity provides further clues. Economic and cultural factors affect family sizes and photographs over time show these trends at work. This is of course affected by our ability to archive images. We have extensive archives on the larger countries, but more limited collections on the smaller countries.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too oftn we just view boys' clothing in contex with what the rest of the family was wearing. This will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we are still beginning to collect information.
Family portraits are an interesting way of comparing the clothing of the other members of the family with the ways that boys dressedin any given time period. Many of the HBC pages show boy's clothing in isolation. This is necessary because we donot have the ability to address the enormous additional topics of girls, women's, and men's clothing. Images of families, however, enable us to relate boys' clothing to hat worn by the other family members which might be useful to readers with a wider dfashion focus. These images also provide some insights into Belgian family life.
Social class commonly affected family life in countries around the world. Etnicity can also be important. In Czechoslovakia with the coming of World War II it became a very serious matter and for Jews a matter of life and death. We do not have much information on Czechoslovakian families at this time as is the case of most small countries. And because that the Czech lands were for several centuries part of the multi-national Austrian Empire, there was a considerable mixing of ethnicities. This is reflected in the family images we have found from Czechoslovakia. The Czechs finally got gtheir own country--the Czech Repunlic (1990s) also czlled Czechiaa. It is basically historucal Bohemia.
Available images of Danish families provide interesting insights on how Danish boys were dressed as well as how other members of the family were dressed. Often boys of similar age were dressed similarly. Many families could be quite large, so there were often several boys of similar age. The sailor suit was one of the most popular garments, but by the 1930s was beginning to be worn less. Older boys might wear adult-looking garments.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too often we just view boys' clothing without any context as to what the rest of the family was wearng. Cllecting information and images on what the rest of the family was wearing will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Much of the photographic evidence here is very stiff formal portraits. This provides important evidence as to the formal clothes worn by English families. The photographic technolgy of the 19th century limit the ability to take candid portrits of family life. The many children's books and periodical publications provide many wonderful images of family life, although almost always comfortable middle class families. The illustrations of course provide less definitive information, but do give an idea as to what boys wore for various occassions.
We have begun to collect some information on Finnish families. The family segment of HBC provides a wealth of date about Finnish society, The family images for various decades provide interesting information about family life and social trends as well as the clothing and hair style fashions. They also provide insights as to the fashions worn by other members over time. It is interesting to see what adult and girl fashions were associated with the various styles that boys wore over time. We are collecting information on families from different regions as well as various demographic segments to provide a complete view of Finninsh society over time.
HBC has begun to collect information and images of families around the world. We believe that this helps to put the more individualized photographs of boys into a more complerte fashion and social context. These images not only show what the other menbers of the family (sisters, mothers, and fathers) were wearing, but also the homes and activities over time and of different social classes. Styes not only varied over time, but also on other variables such as social class. Such information is often difficult to discern from individua portraits. While the individual portraits provide more details on the actual fashions they often provide only cluses as to some of the sociological and historical trends which HBC is also pursuing.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too oftn we just view boys' clothing in contex with what the rest of the family was wearing. This will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we are still beginning to collect information.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too often we just view boys' clothing without the context of what the rest of the family was wearng. This will help to compare trends in boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will also help highlight differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we will collect information about specific families over time as well as individual images of unidentified families to show glimses of Greek families in various historical periods.
Here we will follow Italian family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too often we just view boys' clothing out of contex with what the rest of the family was wearing. Many HBC images are isolated portraits of individual boys that do not show the context of the time. This will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing.
Our Latvian archive is still limited. We have little information on Latvian families at this time. What we have found shows a German fashion influence. we note what looks like an affluent family on a beach vacation. Latvia is located on the Baltic and has beautiful, sandy beaches. There are three boys. The oldest boy wers a striped sailor blouse. The younger boys wear tunics with Baltic folk detailing. They look rather like the tunics worn by the German princes before World War I. The boys look to be about 3-10 years old. They all have close cropped hair. The photograph is undated, but looks like the 1920s. They are are at Jūrmala. This is resort town about 25 kilometres west of Riga. It is sandwiched between the Gulf of Riga and the Lielupe River. We note another family portrait in 1929 with three children and mother. The boys are wearing matching sailor suits. Their teenage sister is dressed rather like her mother.
Available photograophic images of Dutch families provide useful information of Dutch boys' clothes. Family portraits not only provide useful insights into boys' clothing, but also an interesting way of comparing the clothing of the other members of the family with the ways that boys dressed in any given time period. These images are especially helpful as they provide some idea of the type odf family the boy came from and thus an indicator of which boys were wearing soecific styles. Familiy photographs also provide information on what type of clothing other members of the family were wearing at any given time, including brothers of other ages, sisters, and parents. One popular fashion among Dutch parents was to dress their similar in identical or coordinated styles. HBC pages show boy's clothing in isolation. This is necessary because we do not have the ability to address the enormous additional topics of girls, women's, and men's clothing. Images of families, however, enable us to relate boys' clothing to hat worn by the other family members which might be useful to
readers with a wider dfashion focus. These images also provide some
insights into Dutch family life over time.
A very valuable section of HBC is the family section. Available photograophic images of Norwegian families provide useful information on Norwegian boys' clothes. These images are especially helpful as they provide some idea of the type of family the boy came from and thus an indicator of which boys were wearing specific styles--valuable sociological information. Familiy photographs also provide information on what type of clothing other members of the family were wearing at any given time, including brothers of other ages, sisters, and parents. This helps to put the boys' clothing in context. One popular fashion among Dutch parents was to dress their similar in identical or coordinated styles. Many images on HBC are single person portraits without the context of what adults and girls were wearing. The family section helps to provide the context.
Our Romanian archive is still very limited so we do not yet have many Romanian family images. Periodical publications provide some images of family life, although almost always comfortable middle class families. we do not have enough Romanian images to make any assessment of Romanian family life or the clothing worn.
One interesting aspect of fashions is assessing how the entire famuly was dressed. These images not only help to assess what kind of clothes the rest of the family was wearing with the different boys' fashions. These famly images provide views of whjat the other members of the famoly was wearing. The images also provide some interesting insights on social trends. Here we have just begun to collect images.
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