United States Knicker Suits: Chronology--The 1930s


Figure 1.--These siblings are dressed up for church in 1931. They look to be about 13-16 years old. The boy wears a knicker suit with knee socks.

Knicker suits were still widely worn during the 1930s. They were still standardwear in the early-30s. We see some mail order companies offering suits with both knickers and long pants. We are not sure about the conventions for wearing each. We continue to see American boys wearing knicker suits in the 1930s, especially the early-30s. One major change is that knickers were mostly worn with knee socks, often in loud patterns. We also see mostly low-cut shoes. Knickers had been mostly worn with long stockings in the 1920s. The trend for younger boys to wear them continued in the 1930s when we see more older boys wearing long pants, especially by the end of the decade. We see still see some younger teens wearng knicker suits in the early-30s, but much less commonly after mid-decade. Grade school boys still commonly wore knickers, but we no longer see them in high schools to any extent. Younger boys might also wear short pants suits. Short pants were, however, much less common than in Europe. And the same was true of short pants suits. Knicker suits, however , were more common. Age and social-class conventions were involved here. It was less common for teenagers to wear knickers in the 30s, especially knicker suits. Another obseveable trend in the 1930s is the continued trend for informality. We see fewer boyswearing suits in the 30s. Suits were still common for school in the 1910s and 20s, but we see far fewer bous wearing suits in the 1930s. Thus we see many boys wore knickers to school, but not knickers suits. Church was a little differet. Boys still often wore syuuits to church and we commonly see knicker suits. By the end of the decade we increasingly see long pants suits.







HBC





Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main U.S. knickers suit 20th century chronology page]
[Return to the Main U.S. knickers suit chronology page]
[Return to the Main U.S. knickers suit page]
[Return to the Main U.S. suit pants page]
[Return to the Main Norfolk suit country page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossary] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]



Created: 8:46 AM 3/20/2011
Last updated: 8:46 AM 3/20/2011