Figure 1.--Here we see a sceen from "Aimée & Jaguar". the children wearing the different colors of long stockings popular in the 1940s. Click on the image for another scene.

The costuming is very accurate historically. As far as we can tell, the film is extremely careful in its costuming of children's clothes in Germany during World War II. The housewife is the mother of several boys who are shown wearing long stockings in winter with their hose supporters showing under their short pants in some cases--once in a Christmas scene in which the children are playing with their toys on the floor and again at the Berlin zoo where they are playing outdoors with toy sail boats. Later in the film the German soldier returns on leave from the front and discovers that his wife is having a lesbian relationship. One scene shows the soldier father sitting on the edge of the bed where one of his sons is sleeping (figure 2). In the background, hanging over the head of the bedstead, is a Leibchen which the boy will wear the next day to hold his long stockings up. It appears to be a white sleeveless vest-like garment to which four rather short hose supporters are attached, presumably two for each stocking. This is the closest I've been able to come to an image of the Leibchen, but it may throw a bit of light on the subject. The costuming also depicts the long stockings that German children still commonly wore. The film depicts the two different colors of long stockings--dark brown and chocolate brown commonly worn at the time.

Created: 6:42 PM 5/15/2005
Last updated: 6:42 PM 5/15/2005