Figure 1.--Knickers became popular in America during the the late 1900s and were commonly worn during the 1910s-30s. They were primarily worn with long stockings until the 1930s. Black long stockings were especially common. |
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American boys have worn a wide variety of hosiery with knickers. The most common were long stockings, but knee socks were also worn, especially in the 1930s. We see boys mostly wearing long stockings during the early-20th cenury. For a realtively brief period, mostly in the 1930s, knee socks were connonly worn. Much less common were ankle socks. Boys in the summer would wear ankle socks, but this was mostly in the late 30s and early 40s as knickers were going out of style. We do not nore many boys wearing three-quarter socks with knickers. Some boys went barefoot when wearing knickers, but this was not as common as for boys wearing knee pants.
We see Ameucan boys wearing knickers in the 19th century, but not very commonly. Youngr boys might wear bloomer knickers. Knee pants during the 19th century were mich more popular than knickers. American boys began commonly wearing knickers during the late 1900s and they became widespread during the 1910s. At first knickers were worn mostly with long over-the-knee stockings--usually dark, solid colored stockings as had been worn with kneepants. Boys commonly wore stockings matching their suits. As dark suits were popular for a boys best suit, this often meant dark stockinfs--often black ones. During the summer many boys went barefoot and thus did not wears shoes and stiockings, but when they did they put on long stockings. During the late 1920s, many boys begam switching from long stockings to knee socks. We see knee socks rather than long stockings being worn in the 1930s. Some younger boys wore long stockings, both with knickers and short pants. We see fewer boys wearing knickers with long stockings in the 1930s. Interestingly the old convention of matching the color of the suit with the stockings became less common in the 30s. I think this in part because bold knee sock patterns were so common. Another factor was that the beige stockings had also become very common. Thus we see boys wearing dark nickers with lighter colored knickers. The opposite convention, light-colored knickers with dark stockings was not very common.
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Knee socks were briefly worn with above the knee knickers in the early 1920s. This was about the time that short pants and knee socks becane popular in Britain. Thus we see a few images of boys wearing knickers with kneesocks so that their knnes could be seen, This did not prove very popular. Gradually knee socks becane more popular and by the 1930s were replacing long stockings as hosiery with knickers. This is easily noticeable because long stickings were usually solid colors while knee socks were made in bold patterns. Argyles were a popular pattern. Some were solid colored sdocks with a pattern at the turn-over-top cuff. During the early/mid 1930s, knickers became available with elasticized hems rather than buckle closures. Boys wirh these kneesocks would coomonly roll their kneesocks uo over the elastic hem and then keep the socks up with garters under the turn-over-top of the sock. For formal occasions boys might wear the solid-colored long stockings rather than the knee socks, but this was not always the case.
We rarely see boys wearing three-quarter socks with knickers. This appears to be primarily because three-quater socks began going out of style when knickers began to become popular. In addition, three-quater socks were seen as a style for younger boys and thus boys wearing knickers did not want to wear them. Boys wearing three-quarter socks commonly wore knee pants or bloomer knickers.
As American boys in the 1920s began to less commonly wear long over-the-knee stockings in the 1920s, many would wear ankle socks with knickers during the summer. This trend accelerated in the 1930s and by the 1940s there were more American boys wearing ankle socks with knickers than ankle socks.
Some American boys, especially during the summer would go barefoot. We do not, however, see this nearly as commonly as in the 1900s when boys were wearing knee pants. We note families having portraits tajen with the boys barefoot in the 900s. We are not entirely sure why we do not seethis as commonly in the 1910s when boys were mistky wearing knickers. We believe a factor was probably because it was becoming less common to go barefoot in the United states rather than any convention associated with knickers. Although we are not entirely sure about this.
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