Figure 1.--Quite a few prep schools made sandals a part of the everyday uniform. This continued even when other British boys were no longer wearing them as commonly as they once did. Notice that this boy did not carefullyput on his socks. One of the garter bands is showing.

Men and boys wearing knee socks wore round elastic garters under the turnovers of the socks to hold the socks up. Garter flashes, which can be seen, became the ornamental aspect of such garters. The flashes were also worn at some schools, but were more common in Scouting. They are still worn in Scotland with kilts and by Boy Scouts who wear knee socks with their shorts. When knee socks started being made with elasticized tops, the turnovers were often omitted and boys supposedly no longer needed the round garters, but the socks tended to fall down even so. We note that in Britain that boys in state primaries often wore the elasicized kneesocks while boys in the private schools tended to wear the more expensive turn-over-top socks with elastic garters. There was of course considerable overlap. A British reader tells us his mothers bought bits of elastic in sewing shops and made garters or him and his brothers. This was a less expensive approach. We notice ads for these garters. An example is Ward's garters (1936-37). They were to be worn with kneesocks.

Created: 6:47 PM 6/17/2005
Last updated: 6:42 PM 5/21/2006