Figure 1.--This German boy in 1931 looks to be sitting on what looks like the balcony of an apartment. He wears a traditional blue sailor suit with long stockings, probably grey stockings. |
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All we know about this German boy is that he had this photograph taken in 1931. He looks to be sitting on what looks like the balcony of an apartment. He wears a traditional blue sailor suit with long stockings, probably grey stockings. A reader writes, "A curious photo because the boy seems to be wearing knee socks underneath the light-colored long stockings (light tan or possibly grey). Maybe the long stockings are considered more dressy and formal
than the knee socks and he has put them on for the purposes of the photograph. Or does he wear long stockings because it is a chilly morning? If so, he might wear the knee socks underneath so that he
doesn't have to go home and change later in the day when the weather becomes a bit warmer. We've seen double socks before in Germany, but usually these are ankle socks worn on top of long stockings for extra foot protection. The situation here seems to be a bit different. We do have a photo of a boy at the zoo whose Leibchen strap is still visible underneath his shorts although he has removed the long
stockings that the Leibchen strap is supposed to accommodate. I think German boys dressed in ways that allowed them to shift back and forth from long stockings to bare knees as conditions warranted." Another reader writes, "I think the boy here is wearing long underwear that covers his knees but doesn't reach all the way to his ankles. Probably Mother was worried about his being kept warm enough
in a chilly day. We notice that in America during the 1930s boys often wore waist union suits with ankle-length legs--waist suits that, despite their covering the knees, nevertheless had garter tabs for the attachment of hose supporters so that long stockings could be worn on top of long underwear. This seems to have been much less common in Germany, but here I think we have an example of a boy wearing both long underwear and long stockings at the same time. Boys generally hated wearing both because of the lumpy look and also because long stockings didn't fit very smoothly over the underwear. This seems to have been the case in whatever country where boys wore long stockings. HBC has discussed the issue of keepants/long stocking/long underwear popularity. The page has a cartoon showing a boy being embarrassed by the long johns underneath the long stockings
and knee pants." HBC has less information on Germany, but note that ankle-length long underwear was quite common in America during the 1920s and 30s. We see them commonly featured in Ameeican mail order catalogs. A good example is the Sears 1932 catalog.
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