Figure 1.--These formal suits are for Church or First Communioin or Confirmation. Notice the Church in the background. The oldest boy on the right is dressed in rather adultstyle. He is presumably an older teenager. The boy in the middle wears a long pants sailor suit with a ribboned sailor cap. The boy on the left with a fedora might be a young teenager and wears a double-breasted suit with knee pants. |
The retailer also offered dress-up clothes for church. or First Communioin or Confirmation. Notice the Church in the background. The oldest boy on the right is dressed in rather adultstyle. He is presumably an older teenager. The boy in the middle wears a long pants sailor suit with a ribboned sailor cap. We suspect that this might be for a First Communion. This would mean itmight be worn for a boy about 7 years old, alhough olders to about 10years old might wear it. We have seen even older German boys wearing silor suits, but after the NAZIs came to power this became increasingly less common. The boy on the left with a fedora might be a young teenager and wears a double-breasted suit with knee pants. Notice the decorative buttons on the pants and long grey stockings. We suspect this might be for a boys' confirmation. This wouldmean a boy about 12-13 years old. I didn't realize that boys in Germany were still wearing knee pants for dress-up occasions as late as 1935. Most boys of that period seem to have worn short pants. But apparently the knee pants still persisted for very formal occasions. Unfortunately we do not have any of the ad copy from the page descibing the clothing thus we can only guess at the ages for which these suits were intended. .
One HBC reader offers one method od assessing age in the absence of the ad copy. He writes, " If we assume that the two boys will grow up to be as tall as the older teenager on the right, then the boy in the kneepants is at 85 percent
of his adult height and the boy in the sailor suit is at 75 percent of his adult height. According to the height chart in a book I have, a boy typically reaches 75 percent of his adult height between the ages 9 1/2, and he reaches the 85 percent 12 to 12 1/2. Or we
could disregard the height of the tteenager and assume that the boy in the sailor suit is about 10 (an outside guess), then the boy in the kneepants would be 13 to 13 1/2. His
features look more like 13 or 14 than 16 or 17, although I've noticed that when you get to be middle aged even college students look like babies! And of course these are illustrations which often do not get the age look just right."
We have developed some informmation on boys clothing associated with religious ceremonies in Germany. This may provide some insights here.
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