Figure 1.--We had thought these brothers were Hungarian. We have since learned that they were Austrian boys living in Budapest, perhaps with family in Germany. They were photographed in 1905. The oldest brother wears his cadet uniform from military school. His two younger brothers wear intical sailor suits. The boys were 6, 10, and 14 years old. The boys were photographed in an styalized boat, presumably to go with the boys' sailor suits. "Siofok" is a holiday resort town on Lake Balaton in Hungary. Presumably the photograph was taken during a family vacation. Note that the older boy wears his cadet uniform rather than a sailor suit even on vacation.

Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too oftn we just view boys' clothing in contex with what the rest of the family was wearing. This will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we are still beginning to collect information. Most of the links here are a glimse of a family at one given point of time. Other links have a view of families over a longer period.

The 19th Century

We have little information on German families during the early 19th century. With the invention of photography, much more information becomes available on the second half of the 19th century. We are just beginning to archive the 19th century family pages we have found and begin to assess the paterns illustrated by the photographs. Througout the decade younger boys wore dresses. This varied greatly from family to family. At mid-century we see men in frock coats and women in voluminous dresses. Boys has longish over the ears hair and wore tunic suits. Girls wore dress with pinafores. Gradually as the century progressed. boys began to wear their hair cropped. Younger boys still wore dresses. We still boys wearing belted tunics in the 1890s, but the cut-away jackets were no longer very common. The sailor suit had become san important style in Germany by the 1890s. Boys more commonly wore kneepants. Younger boys commonly wore shrt-cropped hair. Girls dresses had tight neck collars.

The 20th Century

We have collected numerous images of German families in the 20th century. The images provide a wonderful archive of changing fashions and styles, not only for boys, but for the other members of the family as well. We note many German boys in the early 20th century wearing sailor suits. Tunics were also worn. Norfolk suits were popular with younger boys. Long stockings were commonly worn, especially during the Winter months. After World War I, short pants and kneesocks become more common. We see many boys wearing open collar shirts even with suits during the inter-War era. Until after World War II, German boys wore destinctive styles. Geradually by the 1970s, German boys are increasingly wearing pan-European styles. By the ednd of the century, boys in Germany and other European countres can no longer be easily identified by the clothes they wear.

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Created: April 21, 2002
Last updated: 11:15 PM 5/6/2006