Figure 1.--We notice fashions for younger boys showcasing embroidery work in the fall 1989 issue of 'Sew Beautiful'. A pre-school boy wears shortalls. As is often the case with shortalls he is pictured wearing English closed toe-sandals. A slightly older boy wears bib-front overalls. Another pre-school boy wears a Peter Pan blouse and button-on shorts. Another boys wears suspender knicker-length pants. The garments have fun embroidered work with appealing fire trucks and tractors. The garments were depicted in an article entitled "back to school fashion". The boys pictured, however, are mostly pre-school boys.

We notice fashions for younger boys showcasing embroidery work in the fall 1989 issue of Sew Beautiful. A pre-school boy wears shortalls. As is often the case with shortalls he is pictured wearing English closed toe-sandals. A slightly older boy wears bib-front overalls. Another pre-school boy wears a Peter Pan blouse and button-on shorts. Another boys wears suspender knicker-length pants. The garments have fun embroidered work with appealing fire trucks and tractors. The garments were depicted in an article entitled "back to school fashion". The boys pictured, however, are mostly pre-school boys. Mollie Jane Taylor made the overalls. Albe Creations of Winston Salem, North Carolina which no longer exists made the embroidery plate on the overalls. A reader writes, "I have to wonder how commonly little boys actually wore overalls, longalls, or button on pants with English sandals or T-straps as pictured here. I do not know if it was just for the photoshoot or the outfits that they came to the photoshoot already wearing. I mean, were the clothes theirs or did they just wear them for the photoshoot? Did these children ever wear these kinds of clothes on a daily basis or at least every Sunday to church? I don't know. I spoke with one of the contributing authors to Creative Needle in the 1980s, and she said she got (as a present) the exact same green overalls that the little boy was wearing in the 1986 September issue of Creative Needle for her little boy." Actual usage information is difficult to come by. The companies mentioned like Mollie Jane Taylor make expensive clothing for well-to-do families. These were not brands sold in K-Mart or Wall Mart. The embroidery pannels were either expensive or tume consuming to produce. These factors limited the number of boys wearing the fashions pictured here. Of course there were less expensive brands that were sold in chain stores. The sizing in catalogs and the photograp record can help to show how common they were. Especially the bib-front overalls seem to be fairly commonly worn. As to the closed-toe sandals, the pgotographic record suggests to us that they were not very commonly worn by American boys, but regional abd socisl class factors seem to be involved.

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Created: 6:40 PM 10/27/2009
Last updated: 8:34 PM 11/30/2010