Children's Footwear: Spats


Figure 1.--Spats are short gaiters or leggings worn over the instep and usually fastened under the instep with a strap. The American unknown boy here is about 6 years old. He wears a belted one-piece white short pants suit with dark accents. Notice the spats on his shoes.

Spats are short gaiters or leggings worn over the instep and usually fastened under the instep with a strap. The purpose was to protect the shoe and ankle area. The term appeared around the turn of the 19th century in England and was an abreviation for " spatterdash ". Spats are made out of both cloth and leater. In modern times, spats have become seen as silly and overly fastidious, and used in the P.G. Wodehouse book, Young Men in Spats. We also notice them being worn as part of military uniforms. The U.S. army issued spats in World war II. White spats were worn by Scottish officers in Highland dress. Spats are more associated with adults than children, but we have noted children wearing them as well. An example is an unidentified boy who may be Swedish in the early 20th century. The American unknown boy here is about 6 years old (Figure 1). He wears a belted one-piece white short pants suit with dark accents. Note the collar and cuffs with contrasting color and the matching strip down the front with white buttons which stand out because of the color contrast. He wears quite a wide belt, also in a contrasting color, which is held on by white keepers that are part of the suit. He wears white long stockings with supporters (note the rubber button of his garter showing at the hem of his shorts). He also seems to wearing dressy white spats over his shoes. Probably he was dressed up for a formal portrait at some photographic studio. Note the cherubic and rather posed attitude of the boy as he sits on a wooden stool. We have no hint of the provenance of this photograph, but it appears to me American, probably about 1920-23.






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Created: February 4, 2004
Last updated: 9:28 PM 12/25/2010