Figure 1.--This pane from a stereoview is undated. We would guess it was taken in the 1870s. The boy wears stripped stockings with a tunic suit and small ruffled collar. Note the scarfe and Glengarry Scotch bonnet on the back of the chair. You can also see a drum and some kind of toy--maybe a contruction toy like tinkertoys? under the chair. It says Thornwood series on one side, but I do not know if this is an English or American company. The image provides an interesting view of a Victorian home. The title was "overtasked"--rather modern sounding. I am not sure what he is writing on his slate. They appear to be numbers so perhaps he is doing his homework.

We have noted boys wearing striped long stockings with a wide variety of outfits. It appears though that the striped stockings were primarily worn with suits. The suits worn by boys with stripped socks are representative of the plainer suits worn in the 1860s and 70s. One common feature was vertical strips, usually in contrasting colors on the sides of the kneepants. This became less common in the 1880s, when younger boys might wear fancier suits like Fauntleroy suits. Striped stockings were worn with the increasingly mature looking suit jackets that boys wore after emerging from dresses kilt suits, Fauntleroy suits, or sailor suits. We have also noted boys wearing stripped stockings with tunics. Some boys wore strippped stockings with kiltsuits, but solid-colored stockings were more common.

Dresses

Most American boys still in dresses appear to have worn them with solid-colored stockings. White was common and in the 19th century boys commonly changed to darker colored stickings when they were breeched. There were some boys, however, who wore their dresses with long striped stockings. While HBC has only limited informatiion at this time, we believe that this was a minority of boys in dresses who wore the stripped stockings. As with the stripped stocking style itself, this appears to have been most popular from the late 1860s to the 1880s. Striped stockings with dresses or kneepants are much less common in the 1890s.

Kilt Suits

We see quite a few boys wearing striped stockings with kilt suits. Solid-colored stockings were more common in the United States, but quite a few boys wore these striped stockings. A good example of a boy wearing striped stockings with a kilt suit is Emery Washington Elliot, a SanFranciso boy about 1880. Striped stockings were never worn with actual Highland kilts.

Tunics

We notice boys wearing tunics also wore horizontal stripped stockings. This was especially true of the tunics worn in the mid-19th century through the 1880s like the one pictured here (figure 1). The tunic suits that became popular at the turn of the 20th centiry were rarely worn with stripped stockings.

Fauntleroy Suits

Striped stockings were never worn with proper Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. In the many portraits we have noted of boys in Fauntleroy suits, we have not noted boys wearing striped stockings. This is not to say it was never done, bit it mist have been rather rare.

Sailor Suits

Striped stockings were worn with sailor suits, but this was primarily in the 1860s and 70s when sailior suits were just becoming popular as a boys style. So many boys wore sailor suits that images do exist of boys wearing striped stockings with them, but solid colored stockings were much more common. Striped stockings were less commonly worn with sailor suits in the 1880s and virtually never in the 1890s.

Suits

Striped stockings were priarily worn with suits. The suits worn by boys with stripped socks are representative of the plainer suits worn in the 1860s and 70s. One common feature were vertical strips, usually in contrasting colors on the sides of the kneepants. This became less common in the 1880s, when younger boys might wear fancier suits like Fauntleroy suits. Striped stockings were worn with the increasingly mature looking suit jackets that boys wore after emerging from dresses kilt suits, Fauntleroy suits, or sailor suits.

Pants

Most of the boys wearing striped stockings appear to have worn them with kneepants. Often they were rather long kneepants--to the calf level. This appears to have been because the time at which they were popular was before the 1880s when the lebgth of kneepants became fairly standardized at just below the knee. Notably some younger boys even at this time wore shorter cut knee pants. Thus in the 1870s the length of kneepants may well have been made purposefully shorter for younger boys--although HBC can not yet confirm this. HBC is unsure to what extent striped stockings, or for that matter, long stockings in general were worn with long pants.