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long stockings: country trends United States lengths 1920s
U.S. Long Stocking Lengths: 20th Century Chronology--1920s
Figure 1.--Here we see rwo siblings abiyr 2-5 years old dressed ip and posed in the back yard. We might have guessed it was Easter, but the fooliage looks rather lish for Easter unless they live in perhaps Florida. Nootifevthe different bkength of long stoickigs. The long length likevthe boys is wearing becamevnecessaru in the late-1920s and 1930s. The backyard snapshot is not dated, but we wiukd guess was taken in the late-1920s. A reader provides a detailes assessment, " I agree with you that it appears to be a special occasion, what it is I do not know. The boys' outfit is interesting. It appears to be a velvet suit with a ruffled collar and matching cuffs. He has the traditional 3 button knee trousers too. The long stockings are interestingly bunched up. It appears he is wearing a hemmed leg union suit that is loose fitting with the long stockings taking the shape. It is very baggy or stretched at the knees and then his shoes appear to be high top patent leather shoes with light colored (possibly white) shoes laces. He seems to be wearing a solid color floppy bow with it too. The two are sitting on some sort of bolster (cushion from a couch or lounge chair) with a laundry basket as a back and another basket for the baby to hold her hands in."
Most Amerivan noyd comntinued ti wear knickers in the 1920s. The kength of knickers changed slightly. They were almost always worn below the knee. This of course did nor require a change in the length of long stockings. It did permit knickers to be worn with knee sovks. And by the end off the decade, we see more and more boys wearing knickerd with knee soivks rather than long stockings. We see both boys and girls to some extent wearing shorter length clothing with the relatively short long stockings that had beeen common earlier. An example is a Wards's ad for long stockings (1922) showing a girl with short long stockings, just over the knee. Boys wore long stockings with both knee pants and knickers--both above and below the knee knickers. We note an American boy (1921-22) wearing above-the-knee knickers with medium length long stockings. We begin I to see boys wearing very long-length long stockings. We note a First Communion suit worn by a Brooklyn boy (dated during the same period--i.e., the 1920s) showing extremely long white stockings worn with quite short, short pants. But the advertisements for long stockings during the 1920s and early 1930s often don't say anything about extra length although the pictures shown in the catalog make the stockings look somewhat longer. Lmee pants were disappearing and shirt pants replacing them. The shirts, however comtinued toi be relatively long, but shorter than was commion for knee pants. The same trend was essentially the same for girls skirts. We see girls with skirts above the knee, but not much higher. This meant rgar by the end if the decade, longer stockings lngrghs wre needed, but generally not much longer. This began to change at the end of the decade when we begin to see shorter lengths, but was most notable in the 1930s. Meaning much longer lengths would be needed.
