Figure 1.--

Gunter Merkel has published a lovely little book about his childhood in Germany--What Life Was Like: Laughs and Reflections ( Lebenszeichen: Heiteres und Besinnliches ) (BOD GmbH DE, 2003). One of the chapters is entitled "Light and Shadows" and includes a personal reminiscence of the author's school days in a Gymnasium. He would have been about 12 or 13 years old at at the time--the equivalent of Junior High School for American children--i.e. about 7th or 8th grade. Merkel writes:

The greatest ignominy for us boys was the Leibchen which we had to wear as part of our underwear when the weather got chilly. It was a kind of undershirt with hose supporters attached for holding up our warm, long dark brown stockings. It involved a constant tugging and pulling on our thighs. Sometimes the button for attaching the stocking to the garter came off and the hem of the stocking fell down below our knees so that our bare leg under our short pants was exposed to the elements" (pp. 35-36).

This is a point I have not seen mentioned elsewhere in connection with the Leibchen. Many Leibchens were purchased in German shops for boys' clothes and came equipped with manufactured fasteners at the ends of the supporters (as in the case of American garter waists). But it was very common, in the interests of economy, for German mothers to make Leibchen for their boys and girls at home. If they did this, they simply sewed elastic straps onto a shirt-like bodice (sometimes two garters, sometimes four). They used web elastic straps that already had button-holes in them spaced at regular intervals so that the length of the garter could be adjusted to a boy's height. Then they sewed large white buttons onto the tops of the stockings so that the buttons could be attached to the garter straps. If the garter straps were taut (as would be necessary to keep the stocking from sagging and looking sloppy), the strain on the stocking buttons would sometimes cause them to come off and the stocking would thus fall down. But this would only happen, I think, if there were a single garter for each stocking, because it would be unlikely for two buttons to give way at the same time. Gunter Merkel must have worn a single rather than a double garter Leibchen. I can imagine that some mothers were aware of this problem, and either bought an already made Leibchen with regular metal garter clasps as part of the garment (the metal clips wouldn't be likely to come off or come undone), or else used a double-strap arrangement if they were sewing the Leibchen at home.

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Created: 9:45 PM 11/19/2005
Last updated: 9:45 PM 11/19/2005