Figure 1.--This German family snapshot shows a teenager on a winter or early spring outing with his parents, proably in the mid-1950s. Dad presumably took the photograph. Note that like many older boys, he is wearing his Lederhosen without a halter. He looks to be about 15 years old.

HBC had thought that age was a factor as to if boys wore their Ledehosen with or without halters. This may a factor why older boys after World War II often wore Lederhosen for Scouting. We though that they might not like the folk look or associated halters with younger boys. Here we have received different opinions from our German readers. But it undeniable in the photographic record that older boys, especially after World War II stopped wearing the haters. We oinly see younger boys wearing them except for special occassions. We think the differences may br partially explained by different attitudes during different time periods. We think tradition was important in the pre-World War II period. But after the War and the onset of the German Economic Miracle that boys began to have more ideas about there clothes and what was trendy. And parents were more willing to listen to their sons and try to get ghgem the styles they wanted. This was especially true for the older boys. As German boys began wearing short pants less commonly in the late 20th century we see far fewer Lederhosen. But when we do see them, we begin to see more halters as they were often being worn for traditional Folkish events.

Attitudes

HBC had thought that age was a factor as to if boys wore their Lederhosen without halters. This may a factor that older boys after World War II often wore Lederhosen for Scouting. We though that they might not like the folk look or associated halters with younger boys.

Tradition

A German HBC reader, however, is not convinced that age is a factor, He writes that "... halters have nothing to do with age I think." He does indicate, however, that 'as a young boy I wore them on regular trousers too (not the leather ones of course). They allow you to grow into your trousers a bit.'" This means that young boys could wear trousers bought in slightly large sizes and thus get more wear out of them. Another reader provides a more detailed assessment. "The buttoned-up-fall-front-Lederhosen ('Knopflatz' in German) were in principle all designed to be worn with halters (buttons for them standard attached), for men and boys both; only rather recently one encounters on Lederhosen shop websites regularly button-up-fall-front-Lederhosen without halters and, instead of them, fitted out with belt loops, for adults (and sometimes for boys too). Belt loops in principle were allways lacking in the case of the traditional buttoned-up-fall-front-Lederhosen (perhaps the Hitler Jugend was in this respect an exception). We suspedct that views about tradition changed over time.

Age

In the past after the Second World War the boys wearing the Lederhosen in practice sometimes did remove the halter (as Scouts now all do), because elder boys from the 1960s on might deem them childish and old-fashioned, also in regard of the growing popularity of the more modern kind of Lederhose with double zip-fasteners, which mostly were worn with a belt, and especially in the case of older boys already mostly lacked the buttons to fasten the halter. I know from personal experience that they did remove the halter as teenagers. Old photographs show that you will only find younger boys with the combination of zip-fall-front and halters. To prevent their sons from removing the halter (they might do this after leaving home on their way to school to make their button-up-fall-front-Lederhosen look more sporty amidst of their school mates who already did wear the more modern zip-fall-front-Lederhose). I remember one mum that even sewed Lederhose and halter around the connecting button (by this in fact superfluous) together. The question might rise, why those mothers wanted so sincerely for their sons to wear their Lederhosen with halters. We have no definitive answer for this. We suspect that it was partly because, in the case of younger boys, the combination with the halters was regarded as particularly charming. There were a lot of grandmothers melting when seeing a little boy in cute Lederhosen, as a small replica of some nostalgic Trachten-image so to say. The image of a pastoral boy in traditional Trachten-dress, the kind of sentimental motive to be found on certain postcards in the past. And in the case of older boys, they thought it was done because it would guarantee that the wearer always would look spick and span. An old problem for mothers: the predictability of their boys in the more formal environment once prevalent in Germany. Because the halter automatically will force the Lederhosen wearer to tuck his shirt decently inside his shorts, and not have it hang untidily outside it (what a belt wouldn't be able prevent). Exactly what a boy in the 1960s, when a buttoned-up-fall-front-Lederhose was regarded more and more as unsporty and old-fashioned by his schoolmates might do to hide the buttoned-up-fall-front. Some German readers tell us that as boys they were very eager to get the modern zip-fall-front-type (but at that time parents still would decide it), and felt a bit embarrassed by the obligation to wear continue wearing the old-fashioned buttoned-up-fall-front-Lederhose of an older brother grown out if it."

Specific Ages

We see boys of a wide age range wearing Lederhosen with and without halters. The photographic record clearly shows that younger boys were the boys most commonly wearing the halters. The prevalence of halters was also affected by the chronological period. Far fewer teenagers like the boy here wore the halters (figure 1).

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Created: 3:15 AM 12/28/2020
Spell chcked: 1:43 PM 12/29/2020
Last updated: 1:43 PM 12/29/2020