Figure 1.-- Here we see the rather limited range of hosiery offered for children. The page has hosiery for men and boys. Most of the items were for adult men. Note that much more varied hosiery was offered for men than children. Also note that there was no children's ankle socks. Only kneesocks and lng stockings were available for boys. And the patterned socks were mostly for men. There was no girls hosiery page in the catalog. I'm not sure why that was. The "Kinder-Struempfe" listed on that page of course would be for both boys and girls.

Here we see the rather limited range of hosiery offered for children. The page has hosiery for men and boys. Most of the items were for adult men. Note that much more varied hosiery was offered for men than children. Also note that there was no children's ankle socks. Only kneesocks and lng stockings were available for boys. And the patterned socks were nosly for men. There was no girls hosiery page in the catalog. I'm not sure why that was. The "Kinder-Struempfe" listed on that page of course would be for both boys and girls. The Jelmoli catalog offered several styles of hosiery. They were on page 70.

Jelmoli

We note a catalog form the Grand magasins Jelmoli. Grand magasins Jelmoli has for many years been the flagship department store chain of Switzerland. Johann Peter Jelmoli-Ciolina founded founded the store in 1838 by . Ciolina must have been the maiden name of his wife. He was from the Swiss-italian section of Switerland. The company has always been headquartered in Zurich where the flag-ship department store was opened. It opened branches throughout Switrzerland, but a few years back it sold or closed all its branches and only kept the large store in Zurich. I would say it was always an "up-scale" department store. The catalog-department was a very small part of their operations and the catalogs carried a very small amount of merchandise, compared to what was available in their stores. The catalog-department was added in 1899.

Conventions

Here we see the rather limited range of hosiery offered for children. The page has hosiery for men and boys. Most of the items were for adult men. Note that much more varied hosiery was offered for men than children. Also note that there was no children's ankle socks. Only kneesocks and lng stockings were available for boys. And the patterned socks were only for men. There was no girls hosiery page in the catalog. I'm not sure why that was. The "Kinder-Struempfe" listed on that page of course would be for both boys and girls.

Styles

Here are the various styles of hosiery for boys offered by Jelmoli in 1938. There were three types of kneesocks and one type of long stockings. The kneesocks were only for boys. We're unsure why they were inappropriate for girls. The long stockings, however, were for both boys and girls.

Huebsche Knaben Kniesocken

Here are patterened kneesocks just like the adult styles. We have only noted men and boys wearing these patterenrd kneesocks. The Jelmoli ad copy read, "Huebsche Knaben Kniesocken, Baumwolle, neues Dessin, braunm oder grau kariert, Fusslanegnen 16cm Fr. 1.35 – 24 cm Fr. 1.95."

Knaben-Kniesocken

Here we have boy's cotton kneesocks. They were offered in beige, blue (I'm not sure what helblau mean), or dark brown. I am not sure why these and the other solid colored kneesocks were seen as boys' kneesocks and not appropriate for girls. The Jelmoli ad copy read, "Solide Knaben Kniesocken mit Gummizug, Baumwolle gestrickt, beige, hellblau oder dunkelgrau melliert. Gr. 4 95RP – Gr.9 Fr. 1.65."

Knaben Kniesocken

This was a higher quality kneesock. They were offered in blue and beige. The Jelmoli ad copy read, "Knaben Kniesocken, extra starke Fil-d’Ecosse Qualita. Hellbrau und beige Gr. 4 Fr. 1.45 – Gr. 8 Fr. 1.85."

Kinder-Struempf (Kinder – Boys/Girls)

Here we have long stockings. Note he term "Kinder", this means children. Thus these stockings were deemed ppropriate for both boys and girls. There was little choice here. They were only available in mid and dark brown. The Jelmoli ad copy read, "Kinderstruempfe, Baumwolle 1x1 gestrickt, mittelbraun oder dunkelbraun. Fusslaenge 14 ½ - Fusslaenge 22cm Fr. 1.40."

Grössenerklärung/Sizing

Jelmoli offeed a size conversion table by which the sizes are equating the sizes of the adult socks (Grösse 10-11 1/2 ed to centimeters (26-29). The small er sizes Gr. 4-9) are provided in centimeters (16-23) in the ad copy of each item. I'm not sure just how this measurement was taken, but it seems to be the length of the foot. The boys' childrn's knnesocks had the measurements stated in hthe a copy, except for the long stockings which only had the measurements indicated.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Cloth and textiles] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Satellite sites] [Tools]

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Sailor suits] [Eton suits] [Knickers] [Short pants] [Long pants]
[Suspender pants] [Button-on styling] [Jeans] [Long stockings] [Stocking supporters] [Waists]

Created: 9:49 PM 8/1/2006
Last updated: 9:08 PM 8/2/2006