Figure 1.-- This unidentified German portrait is undated. We would guess the portrait was taken in the early 1920s, in part because of the Schiller collar which was fashionable in the 1920s. He wears a peaked army-style cap with a sailor suit. This cap looks more military tha many we have noted. Image courtesy of the BP collection. Click on the image to go back to the original black and portrait. |
HBC as a historical site has relied heavily on vintage photograhic images. This has meant until the 1970s, mostly black and white images because color photography was relatively limited. While we think the old black and white images are wonderful, we can't help but wonder about the color of the clothing the children are wearing. A HBC reader is especially intreagued with color. She has worked on colorizing some of the images in her vintage photograoh collection. Here there is no scientific process involved. Her colorization is a assessment of possible colors based on her knowledge of period color trends.
HBC as a historical site has relied heavily on vintage photograhic images. This has meant until the 1970s, mostly black and white images because color photography was relatively limited. While we think the old black and white images are wonderful, we can't help but wonder about the color of the clothing the children are wearing. To some extent we have addressed this problem by building the catalog section of HBC. Here maby of the pages have color information. Unfortunately except for the American catalog section, the catalog information on most countries is still quite limited.
HBC considers vintage photographs like this historical dicuments are artifacts. Thus we do not alter the images. This is important. With modern digital imasging it is possible to modify images in a number of ways. In our historical assessment we never do this an reject images that we know for whatever reasons to have been altered. Here we are making an exception because our reader's work is very high quality and based on a considerable knowledge of German clothing trends. We will, however, be very careful to clkearly label the images as colorized black and white images. We also are using the images as launching point for discussions of cntemporary clothing color. Thus we welcome reader comments.
A HBC reader is especially intreagued with color. She has worked on colorizing some of the images in her vintage photograoh collection. Here there is no scientific process involved. Her colorization is a assessment of possible colors based on her knowledge of period color trends. The resulting images are beautifully done, but they are only guesses as towhat the actual colors were. Here our reader was unsure, especially with the color of the pants and socks. We would be interested in any insights HBC readers might have about the possible colors.
This unidentified German portrait is undated. We would guess the portrait was taken in the early 1920s, in part because of the Schiller collar which was fashionable in the 1920s. He wears a peaked army-style cap with a sailor suit. This cap looks more military than many we have noted. We are not sure what the crest on the cap represents. This is probably the boy's a First Day school portrait. Note the school satchel that he is wearing. Our contributor writes, "Sorry I can't make out the pin. I tried an enlargement but still it is not really recognizable. I
guess it is some kind of eagle." Boy's before World War I often wore a round pin with the three colors of Imperial Germany (red, white, and black). The colors of the new German Republicafter the War changed (red, black, and red). I do not think, however, pins in the Republican colors were all that popular. I'm not sure what the boy's eagle here represented.
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing German pages:
[Rturn to the German peaked military cap chronology page]
[German choirs]
[German movies]
[German youth groups]
[German school uniforms]
[German royalty]
[German sailor suits]
[Lederhosen]
[Ethnic]
[Tights]
[Long stockings]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[German glossary]
[Satellite sites]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]