Figure 1.--Here we see a family snapshot, probably from the early 70s. (Tights did bot appear in the Siviet Union until theclate-1960s and did not become common until the 1970s.) The boy is probably wearing tights becuse it wa a little chilly. Notice how his mother is wearing a warm flannel shirt.

Family snapshots show Russian boys wearing tights for a variety of family outings to parks, picnics in the country, or other family events. Many images show boys wearing tights with short pants. Girls commonly wore the, with skirts and dresses for similar outings. Here we can only tell if boys are wearing tights if they are wearing short pants. We are unsure how common it was to wear tights with long pants. There are seasonal fctors at play here. By the time tights appeared in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s, it was becoming less common for boys to wear short pants all year round. Especially in the 1970s shorts began to be seen as casual seasonal wear. Thus tights were not as commonly worn with shorts as long stockings had been earlier. Still we see quite a number of images in the photographic record of boys wearing shorts with tights. We are not entirely sure why mothers would have wanted boys to wear tights on a warm summer day, but perhaps in the Spring and Fall, changeable weathrr conditions were involved.

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronologies] [Countries] [Style Index]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: 11:21 PM 12/7/2008
Last updated: 11:21 PM 12/7/2008