Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified American girl wearing rompers and her brother wearing a sailor suit. It looks like they are on a park outing. The snapshot is undated. We would guess it was taken about 1920. Notice the huge hair bow. Hr rompr sut is a little more dressy than we usually see.

Gender conventions for most garments were very similar in different countries. Rompers were different. Romper usage varied a gread deal from country to country. French rompers were only for boys, at least until recent times. We begin to see some girls wearing them in the 1970s. We are not yet sure about Britain. American rompers were worn by both boys and girls, at least in the early years. Unfants of both genders wore the. We see some younger American boys wearing rompers (1920s), but they soon became primarily a grls' garment. Girls wearing rompers wore them for play or in the case of older girls for strenuous activity. Almost all the images we have found of little girls wearing rompers are clearly play garments. We are less sure about the dressier styled rompers. We note some dressy rompers for boys, but we do not see this at all for girls. When girls dressed up they wore dresses. Girls wore dresses for formal occasions. Little girls wore rompers around the house for play. Older girls wore them for summer camp or gym. We do notice a few images of girls wearing rompers for outings to parks when they seem a little dressed up, but this was not very common and as far as we can tell, only for little girls. HBC has, however, very little information on rompers, so this assessment is highly speculative at this stage. We hope to obtain more information from period catalogs.

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web chronological pages:
[The 1890s] [The 1900s] [The 1910s] [The 1920s] [The 1930s] [The 1940s] [The 1950s]

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web style pages:
[Return to the Main American gender connottions page]
[Return to the Main romper gender page]
[Dresses] [Smocks] [Bodice kilts] [Kilts] [Sailor suits] [Sailor hats]
[Ring bearer/page costumes] [Shortalls]

Created: 1:32 AM 8/11/2009
Last updated: 7:29 AM 10/11/2012