Figure 1.--

HBC has little information available on the use of long stockings in Italy. HBC believes Italian boys wore long stockings, but as with many topics, HBC has only limited information available on Italian boys clothing at tis time. We have noted some images of Italian boys boys wearing long stockings. Some school images seem to show boys wearing long stockings, but is is not always clear. We believe that the boys wearing knickers normally wore kneesocks, but we are not possitive about this. We also note some boys in the youth organization Balilla wearing dark long stockings with their short pants uniforms. A reader writes, "Long stockings were sometimes worn by Italian boys in the 1930s, but HBC is right that it was not as common as with European countries to the north." A major factor affecting the use of long stockings in Italy was certainly the warm climate, especially in southern Italy. A reader tells us, "The HBC page on an Italian school near Turin is an interesting illustration of the various colors of boys' long stockings in 1938-39. Here we seem to have beige, brown, and black long stockings all represented--even with the otherwise consistent Bililla uniform from the waist upwards--and a few of the boys don't wear long stockings at all but knee socks. This photograph also shows how long the long stockings had become in Europe by the 1930s, a necessity at this point so that hose supporters wouldn't show under very short short pants."