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American boys wore sailor suits were worn with a wide variety of different pants types during the Edwardian and World War I era in the 1900s and 10s. It was knee pants, however, that were the dominant type. Many boys also wore long pants sailor suits. Knickers sailor suits appeared in the 1910s, but they do not seem as popular as the kmee pants suits. There do mot seem to be any difference in the age or other conventions for wearing knee pants or knickers sailor suits. This seems to be entirely a fashion shift. Unlike regular boys suits, long pants sailor suits do not appear to have involved age criteria. The relative popularity of the long pants sailor suits seems to have been lsrgely unchanged from the late-19th century.
Knee pants had become standard wear for boys in the 189s, including with sailor suits. For most of the Edwardian era, most sailor suits were still most commonly worn with knee pants during the Edwardian era. This essentially meant the 1900s. We do not see bloomer knickers except with tunic suits. This only changed in the 1910s when knickers became strandard wear for American boys. Knee pants during the Edwardian era were primarly worn at knee length. They were not worn above the knee, but normally right at knee length or slightly below the knee. Actual lengths, however, might vary as boys grew in height and given mothers' tendency to but a growing boy a slightly large size that he might grow into. Many of the knee pants had the ornamental buttons at the knee. Some did not, but we are not sure that this was the definitive difference netween knee pants and short pants. We see boys wearing white sailor suits with knee pants and without long stockings, something that was not common in the 1890s. Boys almost always wore long stockings with knee pants in the 1890s and continued to do so in the winter during the 1900s. Quite a few boys wore long pants sailor suits in the 1900s, but knee pAnts were the most common. We still see some knee pants sailor suits in the 1910s, but they gradually became less common as knickers became standard wear for American boys.
We see knickers sailor suits in the early-20th century beginning mostly in the 1910s. They do not seem as common as one might expect from the relative popularity of knickers in the 1910s. We see boys in the 1910s wearing both knee pants and knickers sailor suits. It is a little difficult to tell, but the knickers worn with saolor suits seem to be the bloomer knickers, meaning the ones with drawstring closures and not the buckle closures of regular boys' knickers. Knickers had long been worn in Britain, but were not as common worn in America until the 1900s. Around the turn of the century tunics began to be worn withbloomer knicker pants. This style was very popular in France. Knicker suits were mostly worn by older boys, but younger boys did wear knicker sailor suits. The younger boys wearing sailor suits wore then with both knickers and kneepants. The knickers with sailor suits were commonly worn just above the knee.
From the introduction of sailor suits for boys, the suits were worn with long pants. By yhe 1870s, kneepants were more popular, but sailor suits were avialble with long pants and some Americans chose them. As knee pants became increasingly popular in the late-19th century, sailor suits became one of the few boys styles that were worn with long pants. We can not yet determine the rekative prevlance of the long pants alrernative. Unlike regular boys suits, long pants sailor suits do not appear to have involved age criteria.
Short pants for boys appeared in the 1900s. They were popularized by Baden Powell's Scout movement which quickly spread to America. They did not, however, prove nearly as popular in America as was tghe case in Europe. We do not see American boys wearing sgort pants sailor suits during the Edwardian era. We see them after World War I in the 1920s, but not before the War. Of course knee pants are very similar to short pants.
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