Figure 1.--This German boy is wearing ak single breasted suit with short pants and white knee socks. All we know about this boiy is thast he was from Berlin. We are not sure just how to date the image, It could have been taken duruing the 1930s, but the shoes look rather modern perhaps the 1950s. The back drop, however, looks rather basic for the 1950s. A reader writes, " I agree that the shoes look too modern for the 1930s and that your guess of the 1950s is correct. In the 1930s the boy might well have been wearing long stockings rather than white knee socks. Also I think a 1930s boy would probably have worn a tie. It seems odd to me that this boy buttons his shirt up to collar but still wears no tie. In the 1930s if German boys didn't wear ties, they often (perhaps usually) wore their collars open."

Boys wore suits with both single breasted and double beasted styling. Norfolk styling appeared in the late-19th century. We do not see many First Communion porteaits, however, until the early-20th century. Thus we see some Norfolk suits worn for First Communion in the early-20th century. We mostly see boys wearing either single- and double-breasted suits. We think thast the double-breasted suits were considerd a little more formal which is probably why we see quite a number of double-breasted suiots for First Communion. The single-breasted suits became increasingly common in the 1930s. We do not see the sleeve sashes like we often see in American and France. We do see some boys with lapel boutonnieres. We do not see many German boys wearing Eton suits as was common in America.

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Created: 3:41 AM 5/3/2011
Last edited: 2:02 PM 5/3/2011