Historical Girls' Clothing: German Girls' Decorative Garments--Bows

German bows
Figure 1.--These are the girls lined ou at a Volksshule in Gladbch in 1937. They are First Year students and about 6 years old. Notice hiw many are wearing hair bows. We see both white and colored bows. The boys are lined up separately to the left. For some reason, the girls seem a lot happier avout school thn the boys. Click on the image for information about the class.

Bows were popular with girls. Around the turn-of-the 20th century, we see some boys wearing them, but not nearly to the extent that we see in America and several other countries. Mostly they were worn by girls. The most popular type of bow for girls was the hair bow. We are just beginning our assessment of German hair bows. Our initial assessment is that that they were most common in the early-20th century. But we continue to see them in the 1930s, although mostly for yonger girls, especially after they joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM--Girls' Hitler Youth Organization). This was apparently considered too frivolus for the Hitler Youth. BDM membership wassrequired by law when they turned 10 years of age. The younger BDM girls might wear little bows on their pig tails , but not the big bows on their head.

Hair Bows

The most popular type of bow for girls was the hair bow. Hair bows were mostly for girls. Infant boys might have them, but not older boys even toddler boys. We are just beginning our assessment of German hair bows. Our initial assessment is that that they were most common in the early-20th century. But we are just beginning our assessment. We see noth whilte and colored hair nows. We are not sure at this time just ht the colors were. We continue to see haur bows in the 1930s, although mostly for yonger girls. The 1937 school portait here is a good example. The decline of hair bows was especially after the girls joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM--Girls' Hitler Youth Organization). Hair bows was apparently considered too frivolus for the Hitler Youth. BDM membership was required by law when children turned 10 years of age. The younger BDM girls might wear little bows on their pig tails, but we no longer see older girls wearing the big bows on their head.

Clothing Bows


Sources

Melanson, Christine. E-mail message (November 20, 2018). Christine has kindly provided us family portraits of her mother and grandmother.








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Created: 8:33 PM 11/22/2018
Last updated: 8:33 PM 11/22/2018