Figure 1.--This Belgian boy was photographed in 1936. The boy here wears a stripped double breasted suit with an open collar. Notice the kneesocks with paterened tops. Also note that he does not wear a sleeve bow as was common in France. |
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Boys in the 1930s were less commonly wearing sailor suits for First Communion. Both single and double breasted suits were worn. Some are very formal looking black suits. Other are suits with destinct patterns looking like the boys' regular suit rather one purchased specifically for First Communion. Most boys wore short pants suits with kneesocks. A few boys wore Eton collars, but this was not common. Some boys wore more informal open-neck shirts. Few boys wore white gloves. Some boys wore open collars despite the formality of the occassion. The boy here wears a stripped double breasted suit (figure 1). Notice the kneesocks with paterened tops. Also note that he does not wear a sleeve bow as was common in France.
The boy here wears a stripped double breasted suit (figure 1). Note the wide lapels on the double breasted suit. He has a colored pocket handkerchief, white ones were more common. He may be wearing a short sleeve shirt (I am uncertain about this). Also note the modern looking heavy shoes. The jacket has patch pocket. The boy has a short hair cut, especially at the sides. He wears kneesocks with patterened tops. Also note that he does not wear a sleeve bow as was common in France. He also does not have a rossary or Bible, or sleeve ribbon.
We do not know what kind of headwear Belgian boys wore with their First Communion suits. We have some limited information. We do not see many boys wearing hats. This was almost always the case with boys wearing regular suits. We are not positive that they did not have caps, but we do not see the hats in the portraits. We think headwear was less common in the 1930s than earlier in the decade. It is understandable that they would not wear them for the portrait. But we do not see them on the tables often placed at the booys' side. Caps were also not very common. An exception seems to have been boys weearing sailor suits. We sometimes see them pictured with sailor caps. We both see the boys wearing them as wellm as holding them or with the caps placed on the table. All the caps we have seen are the soft caps, but there weew different styles. Here are archive is still limited so we can not yet assess the different sailor cap styles.
We do noyt have a lot of information on the kinds of coats boys wore for First Communion. In part this was because often the waether is nice and boys did not wear coats. Also boys commonly took anu overcoats they wore off for a formal portrait. Most mothers wanted a portrait taken of their son in a suit often purcahsed for his First Communion. Unlike the suit, the coat would not be an item purchased especially for First Communion.
Boys in the 1930s were less commonly wearing sailor suits for First Communion. Most boyswore suits with the pants matching the coat jacket. Both single and double breasted suits were worn. Some are very formal looking black suits. We believe that black was considered more formal than lighter-colored suits with patterns. Some are regularly cut jackets, others look a bit like tuxedos. Wide lapels were considered rather stylish. Other are suits with destinct patterns such as stripes. They look rather like the boys' regular suit rather one purchased specifically for First Communion. We do not note, for example, white suits. The number of images we have is still limited, so we cannot yet say definatively that no boys wore white suits.
Boys mostly wore white shirts. We note a variety of shirt collars. Some boys wore open collars despite the formality of the occassion. Other boys wore closed neck shirts, mostly with neckties. There were still boys in formal suits wearing button-collars, like Eton collars. Some of the Eton-like collars were rounded.
Most boys wore short pants suits with kneesocks. We note a few boys with longpants suits, but shorts were more common. Boys wear shorter cut shorts than was common in the 1920s.
Boys wearing shortpants suits mostly wore kneesocks. We have noted both grey and black kneesocks. We also snote some boys wearing more casual patterened knee socks. One French reader is surprised at this and believes that such loud socks were not apprprriate for Fitst Communion. He wonders if some of the portraits were not made on the same day as the actual First Communion. We do not note any long over-the-knee stockings in the available images, but suspect a few boys may have still worn them.
Low cut oxford style shoes were the most common.
We notice some boys wear white gloves, especially the boys in the more formal suits. Some boys in more informal suits wore dark gloves, but they look like leather gloves. Our French reader is also surprised that white gloves were not more common. He reports that in France only white gloves, or no gloves at all were worn for First Communion.
We still have a limited number of images, but the ones we do have often do not show the boys with Firt Communion itmes. Many boys, even boys with formal First Communion suits, did not wear the sleeve bows as was common in France. We wonder hereif there were differences between Waloon and French boys. Many boys also did not have rossaries. More boys have Bibles. We note boys with some kind of paper along with their Bibles, but we are not sure what those papers were.
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