Figure 1.--Here all the children wearing short pants wear them with tights for play probably in cool weather. A Japanese reader tells us that te snapsdhot was taken in 1962. Note that for play, dark colors were worn. A reader asks, "I wonder if dark clothes were used because dirt and stains were harder to see." That would be HBC's guess.

Tights made out of polyesters like Nylon were intoduced in the very-late-1950s or early 60s. We are not yet sure about the precise date. Tights seem to have been very widely worn by the early-60s. We sare not sure just how popular they were, but they seem quite common. Conventiond for tights seem very similar to long stockings when they were introduced. We see them being worn both for formality when dressing up as well as for play in cool weather. They were also worn to school. Cool weathe wear was important because so msany Japanese boys wore short psnts, even during the winter. They became very popular for children, both boys and girls, again following the convetions for long stockings. There is some indication that they were at first worn more by boys than girls, but we can not yet confirm this.

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Created: 5:14 PM 8/27/2009
Last updated: 5:14 PM 8/27/2009