Figure 1.--This unidentified German boy is posing for a studio portrait dressed in what looks like a smock or possibly a tunic. We are not sure how to classify it. It looks to have been taken about 1930. The boy is about 8-9 years old. The butterfly net used for a prop suggests that the smock or tunic was a play garment. The reason we think it may be a tunic rather than a smock is because it does not seem to be worn as a protective garment over other clothes, but as a main garment in its own right. This is, however, difficult to tell with only the photograph. There is a studio imprint in the lower right-hand corner, but we cannot make it out.

HBC has not yet acquired enough information on smocks to seiously assess the different types of smocks. We have a reltively large German archive. Yet we have found very few images of German boys wearing smocks. This tells us that smocks were not very common, but makes it difficult to fully assess the types of smocks worn in Germsny. Some boys at the turn of the 20th century wore back buttoning dark smocks to school. We have, however, found few examples. We suspect that this may have baried regionally. Yonger boys at home might wear a pinafore-type smock. This garment was fairly common, but we ar unsure as to whether it should be classified a smock or a pinafore. We also see a few garments that look more like smocks, but they were not very common. And some of them look rather like tunics. And we are unsure as to where they should be clasified smocks or tunics. And we are unsure as to what German mothers may have called them at the time. The term for tunic was 'Kittelanzug', meaning something like a coat suit. The German both smock and pinafore become 'Schuerze'. What term would be used for the garment here (figure 1), we are not sure.

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Created: 4:30 AM 6/8/2014
Last updated: 4:30 AM 6/8/2014