Figure 1.--After World War I children begin to wear more informal clothing at seaside resorts. I at first glance thought this boy was British. It came from a Dutch dealer, but he handles mamy French images. We tend to think the boy here is Dutch, but he could be Belgian or French. The portrait is also undated, but looks to have been taken in the 1920s. A British reader writes, "I think the boy is British and possible a little later than you think I'd say 1934. The seaside Jersey looks more in keeping with other images I have seen from the 1930s. Also the bucket and spade. The design on the bucket has a British feel to it. It is a studio photograph. The back cloth looks more English than French or Dutch."

We also see children dressed informally for the beach or at least for seaside beach resort photgraphs. A factor here is that for younger children plsying in the sand is often more important than actually swimming which is a bit beyond them and requires much more careful adult supervision. Even for playing in the sand we often see the children dressed rather formslly in the early 20th century. This changed after World war I when we see children wearing what might reasonably be called play clothes although it will ofte look rather formal to the modern eye (figure 1). Here we see a formal seaside studio portrait from the inter-war era, although we are not quite sure where and when it was taken.

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Created: 4:46 AM 5/17/2006
Last updated: 4:46 AM 5/17/2006