Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified Viginia boy with his baby sister. He wears w awhite sgirt and tie with above the knee light-weight summer knickers. He looks to be about 8 years old. Unfortuantely, the portrait is not dated, but believe it was taken in the 1910s. The early-20s is possible. The studio was Gitchell in Charlottesville, Virginia.

One of the basic stylistic elements of knickers is the length. Knickers could be worn at various lengths. The length hs varied chronologically. This was the basic style in the 1910s and much of the 20s. Basically the effect was that boys wore their knickers at the same length tht was common for knee pants in the 1900s. Younger boys especially wore them above the knees. Here we see a Virginia boy with knickers buttoned above the knee, we think nin the 1910s (figure 1). Many boys as they got older and began to want long pants would often prefer the more manly style of buckling them below the knee. Some mothers would insist that their son buckle his knickers above the knee. The boy, however, after leaving the house would rebuckle his knickers in the preferred below the knee position. We see some boys in wearing above-the-knee knickers with knee socks rather than long stoclings. This was mostly seen in the 1910s for a rtaher short period. A good example is two Texas boys in 1917. This mother/son struggle of the 1920s was imortalized in the classical American musical, Music Man.The problem was eventually resolved during the 1930s as shorts became more common for younger boys. Knickers for older boys were made slightly longer and the fashion of buckling them below the knee became widely accepted in the 1930s.

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[The 1900s] [The 1910s] [The 1920s] [The 1930s] [The 1940s] [The 1950s]

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web style pages:
[Jackets] [Long pants suits] [Blazers] [Kilts] [S ailor suits] [Short pants suits]
[Ring bearer/page costumes] [Eton suits]

Created: 6:05 PM 7/1/2025
Last edited: 6:05 PM 7/1/2025