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The style appears to have been most common in central Europe. We have noted many German and Austrian boys wearing H-bar pants. We have noted H-bar pants in these countries because we have a largerarchive of images from Germany especially. Readers from Germany have been regular contributors to HBC. We have received very little from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. A HBC reader reports, however, that H-bar pants were even more common in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. We have only noted this style in Europe. We have not yet noted any example in America, ecept for a few very rare instance. This may be beczause the style is associated with folk styling, we are not yet sure. A reader writes, "I think that the reason that H-bar suspenders didn't take hold in the America is that their ecological niche was already filled by bibs. The purpose of both is to keep the suspenders from falling off." Bib-front pants of course had the added advantage of protecting the shirt.
We have noted Austrian boys wearing H-bar pants. Many school photographs show at least some Austrian boys wearing them. It is some times difficult to determine if a boy is wearing H-bar pants or lederhosen. School photographs from the 1940s and 50s show large numbers of boys wearing lederhosen with the halters and H-bar shorts. We do not notice many bots wearing H-bar longs. Most of the boys appear to be wearing lederhosen rather than H-bar shorts, but this requires further assessment. We are assuming that boys wearing leaher halters are also wearing leather lederhosen, but here too we are not certain.
A French reader tells us, "In France and Belgium pants with bibs were adopted, but pants with H-bars were practicly unknown." HBC wonders if there were not some difference between the French and Dutch speaking areas of Belgium.
The style appears to have been most common in central Europe. We have received very little from the Czech Republic and Slovakia and thus we have very few actual images at this time. A HBC reader reports, however, that H-bar pants were more common in Czechoslovakia than in Germany. As far as we know, H-bar pants were wornnin both the Czech and Slovakian areas of Czechoslovakia. We are not sure why this style was so common in Czechoslovakia. School photograpgs very commonly show some of the younger boys wearing H-bar pants. This is of course a good indicator that it was a commonly worn style. Boys before Worlrd War II and just aftervthe War commonly wore H-bar shorts. By the 1960s H-bar longs were more common. he school photograph here is a good example (figure 1).
We have not noted English boys wearing H-bar pants to any extent. We have noted a few boys wearing them, apparently purchased from expensive botiques. We notice a London boy in 2002 wearing H-bar shorts, but this was a botique fashion rather than a commonly worn style.
We notice a Finnish boy wearing H-bar shorts in the 1950s. We are not sure, however, how common this was.
A French reader tells us, "In France and Belgium pants with bibs were adopted, but pants with H-bars were practicly unknown." This is perhaps why we have not noted H-bar pants in France.
We have noted many German boys wearing H-bar pants. Most of the images we have noted are the younger boys in primary schools. A reader writes, "In Austria and Germany, H-bar pants were quite common. Beside the praticality of keeping the suspender straps in place, the style was influenced by the popularity of lederhosen. Many mothers were fond of the lederhosen style. Thus they also made suspenders style for wool pants as well." We have perhaps noted H-bar pants in Germany because we have a larger archive of images from Germany especially. Readers from Germany have been regular contributors to HBC. Currently we would say that H-bar pants in Germany while a common style, were less common than in Austria. There may have been regional differences in Germany. Here we do not have enough information to assess at this time. We note a German boy who we think is wearing H-bar shorts, prbably in the 1920s. We note a stylish German mother has all her three boys in 1939 wearing H-bar shorts. We note boys from the former royal family wearing H-bar and susoender shorts in 1952.
We believe that H-bar pants were also very common in Hungary, but we have very few Hungarian images at this time.
We note both susoender shorts and H-bar shorts being worn by Latvian boys. A good example is an unidentified Latvian boy in the 1930s.
We believe that H-bar pants were also very common in Poland, but we have very few Polish images at this time. We do note a class portrait from a school during 1944, but we are unsure if these are German or Polish boys.
Here we see kindergartners from an ethnic German school in a Romanian
town whose German name is Zeidenn. The Romanian name is Codlea, and the Hungarian name is Feketehalom. Place names can be tricky in that part of the world. We note only a few boys wearing H-bar shorts in 1930. We also notice boys wearing suspender shorts and plain suspenders. We notice quite a number of bpys wearing H-bars in 1931. Several have their suspender straps decorated like lederhosen halters. We are not sure to what extent Romanian children also wore H-bar shorts.
We note many images of Sovier children wearing both H-bar pants and skirts. We are not entirely sure about the chronology, but we know it was apopular style by the 1920s. One example is kindergarten children about 1960.
We believve that H-bar pants were commonly worn in Switzerland. The pattern was orobably similar to that in Germany. There may have been differences among French and German soeaking Swiss.
HBC has not yet acquired much information on Swesen. A reader tell us that H-bar suspender pants were not very common in Sweden. Assessing old shool portraits from Sweden, we almost never note H-bar pants. We are not sure why the fashion was not popular in Sweden. Accross the Baltic in Germany and Poland as well as to the east in Russiam H-bar pants were commonly worn. We do not yet know what the popularity of H0-bar pants was in other Scandinavian countries.
We have only noted this style in Europe. We have not yet noted any example in America, ecept for a few very rare instance. This may be beczause the style is associated with folk styling, we are not yet sure. A reader writes, "I think that the reason that H-bar suspenders didn't take hold in the America is that their ecological niche was already filled by bibs. The purpose of both is to keep the suspenders from falling off." Bib-front pants of course had the added advantage of protecting the shirt. That does not mean that the style was never seen. A HBC reader writes, "You know, I wore H-bar shorts until I was about 4 years old. It was during the 1950s. I don't remember wearing it, but there are pictures to prove I did. My parents liked European-styled clothes. I do recall that myn younger brother at the age of 6 in the early 60s wore suspender shorts, bur without the H-bar." So we know H-bar suspender shorts were worn in the mid-50s. They were, however, not very common. Suspender shorts and longs on the other hand were a common style. A reader writes, "The greatest inroad of H-bar suspenders in the United States seems to havev been on schoolgirls' suspender skirts in the 1940s. From the examples I've seen, the style was self-consciously ethnic. I'd have to go searching for some images to demonstrate what exactly I mean. Instead of just borrowing a suspension technique, these suspender skirts included several folk details such as embroidery. They were intended to be cute."
