Figure 1.--This German boy in the 1950s wears patterned knee socks. The pattern looks somewhat like argyles, but the colors look different than we normally see in Scotland.

We note German boys wearing knee socks with a wide range of patterns. We are not sure how to describe many of the patterns. They were quite varied. We see some of the boys wearng argyles. That is a fairly obvious pattern to spot. Actually diamond patterns of some kind seem to have fit into many of the various patterns. Traditional argyles, howevr, were only one of the many patterns worn. Most seem to have non-descript patterns of various sorts. There were msany different patterns with no one pattern relly dominant. We do not know what these varipous pattens were called. The only pattern we recognize is the argyles. We are not sure what German terms were used to describe them. We will simply try to descriobe the patterns until we find names for them if there were actully standard terms for them.

Argyles

Argyles were the first patterned knee socks we notice. It is a pattern of two or more colored diamonds. We first see Scottish boys and mens wearing them with kilts (19th century). It was apattern introduced bythe Campbell clan. They were from Argyll, Scotland, thus the name Argles. The clan and pattern became popular when they were mentioned by the Scottish author and poet Sir Walter Scott. The original Campbell clan pattern was the traditional green and white colors. Gradually other colors, often bright colors appeared. This was especially the case when the pattern became popular in other countries. We notice American boys wearing them, mostly with knickers (1920s-30s). For some reason, British boys did not wear them with short pants, only with kilts. We mostly see Argyle knee socks being wirn with short pants in Germany. Argyles were first a boys' style of knee socks, but girls also began wearing them as knee socks declined in popularity with boys. We do not notice German boysearing them to any extent until after World War II in the late-1940s. They seem most common in the 50s , but we see some German boys still wearing them in the 60s. Boys mostly wore them with short pants, but some teenagers wiore them with knickers. After the 60s they were mostly worn by girls as it became kess common for German boys to wear knee socks. We are not sure about the colors as boys stopped commonly wearing knee socks before colored film became prevalent.

Diamonds

Diamond patterns of some kind seem to have fit into many of the various patterns. Argyles were the most obvious, but there were diamonf patterns that were differt than clasical argyles.

Dots

Squares