Figure 1.--This Swiss schoolboy was photographed on November 25th, 1941, at Hinwill School, a town in the Zurich canton. He looks to be about 10 years old. He wears the common schoolboy outfit of a warm sweater (over a buttoned up shirt without a tie), short trousers, and long stockings (probably brown) held in place by a Strapsleibchen (a bodice, usually with four hose supporters attached). You can see the clasp of one the garters. The boy looks quite happy, In neutral Switzerland probably had very little consciousness of the savage war that was escalating quickly in the East during autumn 1941.

We have some basic information on the chronology of long stockings. We know nothing about the 18th century or the early-19th century. We do note Swiss boys and girls wearing long stockings during the late-19th and first half of the 20th centuries. We see children wearing them through the 1950s and even into the early-60s. A good example is children at the Schlatt School in 1959. A this time tights were rapidly replacing long stockings. We note Swiss boys wearing a variety of hosiery with trends chnging over time. Boys mostly wore long stockings and knee socks in the early-20th century. We note some children wearing three-quarter socks. Swiss boys like German boys also continued wearing long stockings in the 1920s as they were declining in popularity in other countries. We notice a variety of weaves. They were commonly worn seasonally, buthis varied somewhat chronologically. We notice boys wearing ankle socks with long stockings a mid-century (1940s-50s). During the 19th century, modesty was also a fator. And in the 20th century formality was a factor. Swiss boys also wore tights. HBC is unsure at this time as to when tights began to replace long stockings. This is in part because boys began to wear long pants more commonly. We believe that boys mostly wore ankle sicjks with long pants, but some boys mat have worn long stockings. And tights were never worn as commonly as long stockings.

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Created: 12:39 AM 3/8/2011
Last updated: 1:33 AM 5/29/2011