Figure 1.--Here is another Swiss schoolboy, probably about 13 years old, obviously from an upper-level school of Gymnasium. It must have been for both boys and girls since we can see evidence of a girl beside him in the group. The town was Thurgi (in the Zurich canton) and was taken at some point in 1935. They boy wears typical Swiss high school dress for winter--a collared wool pullover with a zippered opening half-way down the front, short trousers (I think with ornamental buttons on the sides although the buttons are mostly obscured by the person's jacket sitting next to him), black long stockings (probably supported by a Strapsgurtel--a boy's garter belt), and high-top leather shoes. In the 1930s long stockings were common for teenagers, both boys and girls, in central Europe.

We note both Swiss boys and girls commonly wearing long stockings. We do not have much information on the 19th century. But we note boths boys wearing stockings on the 20th century into the 1950s. We do not notice a lot of difference between the stockings worn by boys and girls. There may have been some difference in color. This is difficult to tell bcause most of the photographs taken when long stockings were worn were black and white. The colors seem to have been largely tan shades and to a lesser extent grey. Boys and girls would have worn all of these colors as well as black. Girls seem to have worn the white stockings more commonly tham the boys. As to the actual shades there dies not seem go have been much difference. There seems to have been some age differences. We think that girls may have worn long stockings to an older age, primarily because we believe boys commonly stopped wearing long stockings when they began wearing long pants. Girls wearing dresses continued wearing long stockings throughout their teen years.

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Created: 6:02 AM 1/11/2011
Last updated: 6:02 AM 1/11/2011