Figure 1.--Camp shorts appeared in the 1960s and continued to be a popular American style for several decaded. Dark blue and green were the most common colors. This is a tag from a pair of K-Mart camp shorts in 1978..
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Figure 1.--Camp shorts appeared in the 1960s and continued to be a popular American style for several decaded. Dark blue and green were the most common colors. This is a tag from a pair of K-Mart camp shorts in 1978.. |
A popular style of short pants were camp shorts. They were worn by boys of all ages. All the major retailers, both catalog stores and actual stores offered them. K-mart, a discount retailer, offered camp shorts in a wide range of sizes. Here is the tag from a khaki K-Mart camp shorts. I think Brandy's was the manufacturer. The size her was for a 16 year old. I'm not sure what the range was, pfobaby about 4-20. The shorts had the standard mix of zipper and flap pockets. The fabric was a polyester and cotton fabric.
K-Mart was a discount chain create by S.G. Kresgee. During the 1970s and 80s it was the most important American discount retailer. In the the 1980s Wal-Mart became a serious competitor, but K-Mart was a strong competitor. Wal-Mart in the 1990s eclipsed K-Mart.
Here we see a tag from a pair of khaki camp shorts purchased at K-Mart in 1978.
There were no back pockets on these camp shorts. This was common for camp shorts. These camp shorts were a little different in that compared to other camp shorts of that same period in time and almost unheard of on a boys size 16 was the elastic in the back was uncovered elastic in the back. The particular pair of camp shorts as a size 16 was intended for a boy of high school age. As with virtually all camp shorts in 1978, they had elastic in the back of the waist. And, also as with virtually all camp shorts in 1978, it was a 4-needle elastic-back waist.
One major detail that made camp shorts different from almost any other shorts for teen boys in the mid-1970's was that, regardless what
store they were sold in, brand they were, or whatever, camp shorts in teenage boys sizes almost always had elastic in the back of the
waist. With the exception of camp shorts, it was almost impossible to find an elastic-back waist on any shorts bigger than a boys size 7.
Then, if you were able to find elastic in the back in teen sizes, it was almost always "covered" elastic. In other words, the fabric of the
pants folded over the elastic on the inside of the waistband so that you couldn't actually see the white elastic band. "Uncovered" elastic,
where the white elastic band was sewn such that it was visible on the inside of the waistband, was used almost exclusively in "little boys"
sizes, only up to a size 7.
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