Figure 1.--Here we have an unidentified European school portrait. We are unsure about the country. Wewould guess Yugoslavia, but perhaps readers might have some insights. The teacher is in the middle. He has a very blarge class, 66 boys if I counted correctkt. Easier is the chronology. It looks to us like the 1920s. And we see quite a variety of school garments. We see some boys wearing suits, mostly collar-buttoning suits. A few boys have lapel suits. Several boys wear sailor suits. Many boys wear collared shirts, commonly buttoned at the collar. Only a few boys have ties. We also see a few boys wearihg what might be called "T"-shirts. Many boys seem to be wearing short pants with knee socks. We also see knee pants. Most boys have very short hair cuts, but as many of the cropped hair that was so bommon in the 1910s.

We are also building chronologies for the basic schoolwear garments like headwear, shirts, jackets, neckwear, sweaters, trousers, hosiery, and footwear. We have begun several od these pages, but are just beginning to link them here. The popularity of school garments like other fashions have varied over time. The countries that did not have uniforms closely followed overall fashion trends. School uniforms tended to lag behind overall fashion trends. This information can also be used to date undated images. These school photographs are very helpful in dating images because public education became wideespread at about the same time that photographt was developed in the mid-19th century. And after only a few decades, school photography became a well established annual ritual. While our 19th century archive is spotty, by the turn-of-the 20th century we have a very substantial archive, at least for the larger countries. School wear could be rather formal, at least in cities, during the 19th century. Rural schoolwear was more informal. Overalls in American rural schools became common (1910s). We still see formal schoolwear in the early-20th century, but school clothes became increasingly informal after World War I. Not very many children wore uniforms in the 19th century, but some countries mandated smocks. This continued in the 20th century. Communist countries tended to require uniforms fter World War II. Many British public (state) schools began requiring uniforms in the 1960s. And some American schools began mandating volutary uniforms. This began with parochial schools (1960s). This was also began to be adopted in inner-city schools (1970s).

The 19th Century

The 20th Century

The 21st Century

Related Style Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[Long pants suits] [Short pants suits] [Socks] [Eton suits] [Jacket and trousers] [Blazer] [School sandals]

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Created: 11:14 AM 2/28/2017
Last updated: 11:14 AM 2/28/2017