1943 schoolboys' knickers

[dhermann1]

This shot is on Shorpy.com today. Three fine young lads in Harlem, taken by Gordon Parks. What jumps out at me is the fact that they all are wearing knickers with web cuffs at the bottoms instead of buckles. I never heard of such a thing, yet here is the proof.
Some years ago a vintage store in New York, Cheap Jack's, was taking old trousers and adding these stupid cuffs to them. I thought they were just desecrating them (which they were), but now this makes me think they had a precedent. And yes, who wouldn't kill for those socks!

http://www.shorpy.com/node/12454?size=_original

 

[LizzieMaine]

Note also that two of them are wearing rubbers, but there's no suggestion of rain or puddles anywhere. That was a common war-era expedient when your shoe leather was worn thru at the soles.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... they all are wearing knickers with web cuffs at the bottoms instead of buckles. I never heard of such a thing, yet here is the proof.

Yes, it existed back then, especially for kids' knickers. Easier to put on and take off, and slightly cheaper too.


I've rarely come across web cuffs on vintage adult-sized knickers, but web-cuffed vintage kids knickers show up all the time on the vintage market.

 

[Chasseur]

Interesting, I did not know the web cuffs go back that far. I have a couple of vintage adult plus fous/knickers with web cuffs but the oldest only dates back to the 1967.

 

[dhermann1]

Yes, I had noticed the rubbers. too. I was in elementary school very close to that neighborhood only ten years later. Nobody wore knickers of any sort by then. They must have disappeared very suddenly at the end of the war.
The boys didn't normally wear ties, either. The uniform was multistriped jersey t shirts, baggy corduroy trousers with elastic, and clip on suspenders. And we all had those heavy clunky brown oxfords on our feet. In third grade (fall 1954) our teacher gave out a bunch of old ties to the boys, and we had to wear a tie to school one day a week. That's where I learned to tie a tie. Plenty of us wore our tie on top of our striped t-shirt. These boys younger siblings could have been my classmates.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Interesting, I did not know the web cuffs go back that far.

They began to be mass-marketed in the 1920s, though they existed before then.

 

[Talbot]

Easier to put on and take off, and slightly cheaper too.

Easier for hand-me-downs too!