Figure 1.--This boy's romper barboteuse) appeared on the December 1949 cover of "Le Petit Echo de la Mode". It was his dress up outfit. Click on the image to see the full cover.

The Magazine

Le Petit écho de la mode had many patterns for boys, the opposite of Femmes d'Aujourd'hui, another popular magazine in the 1950s, which primarily had clothing for girls and women. The title means, "Small review of fashion". This suggests a fashion magazine for children, but this doe not appear to have been the case as it included fashions for both children and adults. We have archived several images from Le petit écho de la mode on HBC. Unfortunately we do not yet know very muh about the magazine itself. Hopefully our French readers will provide more details. We have noted issues from the 1930s through the 1950s, but are not sure as to the publishing run. Some of the most fashionabl children clothes appeared in Le petit Echode la Mode.

Chistmas Rompers

Rompers are often seen as a summer garment for warm weather gear. In actuality, French boys wore rompers year round. They were more common in the summer, especially the sunsuit type rompers. A boy, however, might wear play rompers and dress rompers even in the winter. This was especially true of dressy rompers. A boy might wear them for pcial occasions even in the winter, such as Christmas. The important French fashion magazine Le Petit Echo de la Mode in Dcember 1949 pictured a little boy in rompers under the Cristmas tree.