Vintage Children Fashions That Were All The Rage During Each Decade

Back in the early days of the 20th century little boys wore smocks. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the garments in question were quite often bedecked with ruffles. But a revolution came along around 1910. Before that, smocks and other children’s clothes were almost universally white, the color of innocence. But then parents apparently discovered color and realized that kids didn’t have to resemble ghosts.

By the second decade of the 20th century fabrics for girls’ clothing were beginning to change. Previously muslin had predominated, but now more robust fabrics such as gingham were becoming commonplace. This was a boon for girls, since muslin was a notoriously fragile cloth that tore all too easily. Stronger cotton fabrics meant girls could enjoy active play with much greater freedom.

A century ago, being dressed up in nautical gear did not necessarily mean that you enjoyed a life on the ocean waves. That’s because sailor suits were the height of fashion for children back then. Mostly it was young boys that wore clothes mimicking what adult mariners wore. But not exclusively so: in some cases girls got in on the act as well.

Long flowing hair for girls had been the order of the day in Victorian times, but change was afoot as the 20th century progressed. Now girls began to tie up their hair with ribbons. Many young girls also started to wear their hair in shorter styles. Ribbons paired with shorter haircuts became widespread: much more practical than the long tresses favored by their predecessors.

Boys often wore suspenders in the 1920s. At this point it’s worth clearing up some potentially embarrassing transatlantic confusion. In Britain suspenders are called braces, while suspenders are what women use to hold up their stockings. In any case, boys wore them in the 1920s, but after that trousers began to appear with belt loops, so belts largely displaced suspenders in the battle against drooping trousers.

For many boys in the 1920s an outfit comprising a flat cap and overalls was almost a uniform. The overalls were certainly practical, but why did the flat cap become so popular? According to one source, it was the British who invented the flat cap. Certainly if you look at photos of British soccer crowds from the 1920s, there’s scarcely a man or boy without one. 

It seems that both boys and girls wore lace-up boots in the 1920s, especially when they were at play. It seems a sensible idea for children to wear robust footwear when they’re in the playground. But we have to wonder how many tears of frustration were shed as children tried to master the technicalities of tying bootlaces. Not to mention the grief for the parents. 

This truly strange fashion actually had a rather attractive do-it-yourself element to it. Apparently kids would make themselves one of these peculiar caps by repurposing dad’s old fedora. They’d cut the brim into a jagged edge and turn it up. Hey presto, you had a whoopee cap. This strange craze even generated popular songs such as one much-recorded ditty titled “The Whoopee Hat Brigade.”

Shirley Temple was the number-one child star of the silver screen in the 1930s, and the costumes she wore in her many movies had a profound effect on the little girls of the time. Bows and frills, flounced frocks and an almost manic femininity were the order of the day. As the 1935-36 Sears catalog put it, “Shirley and her cute clothes have stolen everyone’s heart; no wonder every little girl wants to wear the same styles.”

Nowadays when we go for a swim we tend to wear something synthetic. Modern materials stretch easily to fit the body and as a bonus they’re quick-drying: ideal for a dip. But back in the 1930s both boys and girls were diving into the pool or sea in woolen bathing suits. Wool, of course, gets super-heavy when wet and takes ages to dry. Thank heavens for Lycra.

Buster suits were popular for boys in the 1940s, with the garment worn by toddlers and older children in a variety of different settings. The basic pattern was a matching shirt and shorts which were actually attached together by buttons. It sounds like a rather fussy arrangement, but apparently buster suits were worn both for informal occasions as well as for school. 

With their one-piece convenience, dungarees offered parents an easy way to dress their children for play. Both boys and girls wore them in the 1940s, but the garment has a much longer history. According to the Beyond Retro website the origin of dungarees can actually be traced back to 17th-century India, when the cloth they were made from was called dungri. 

It might be a look that many contemporary children would avoid like the plague, but it seems that wearing shorts with long socks was common enough during the 1940s. The outfit could actually appear quite smart when the shorts and socks were paired with a blazer and tie. In fact, many British schools adopted this outfit for younger boys. Girls would wear long socks with skirts. 

Hollywood hits such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind featured female characters who dressed their hair in bows. The popularity of those movies saw this fashion seep into the mainstream for young girls. As the Courtauld Institute’s Documenting Fashion blog puts it, the ribbon-wearing film stars offered “pictures of wholesome femininity.” On a racier note, Life magazine ran a feature in 1944 claiming that how a girl wore a bow signaled her dating status.

Knitted dresses paired with knee-high socks were all the rage for girls back in the 1950s. Sometimes the dresses were replaced by a twinset of matching tops and skirts, and often the look was completed by hair adorned with bows. These knitwear outfits were definitely best-suited to cooler seasons. On a summer’s day all that wool would hardly be comfortable.

Continuing with the theme of knitwear, another woolen fashion that was popular for girls in the 1950s was the short-sleeved sweater. It would often be worn over a collared blouse and sometimes paired with pants. During the 1950s, girls were beginning to ditch their skirts in favor of pants, which had previously been mostly a male preserve, although it would be some years before this trend really took off. 

Mary Jane shoes were all the range in the 1950s, perhaps in part because they did away with the tiresome fuss of tying laces. The basic pattern of this footwear was a low, open shoe that had a strap across the top which was secured with a buckle or button. But it wasn’t just the practicality of Mary Janes — they also looked great. 

Peter Pan — the boy who never grew up — first appeared in J.M. Barrie’s hugely popular play of 1904. The Peter Pan collar featured rounded rather than sharp points, was notably wide, and was made with soft material. It was a sensation in the early part of the 20th century and then it roared back into vogue for girls in the 1950s. 

The poodle skirt was a simple garment made with a circle of felt fabric and it was worn on the long side. The original poodle actually had a poodle motif sewn onto it. But as the 1950s went on the cute dog was often replaced by other appliqués depicting everything from cartoon characters to martini glasses. The dresses were often paired with saddle shoes and bobby socks.

When Easter came around it was time for the kids to get out their fancy hats and bonnets. The boys might wear a smart tweed cap paired with a coat in matching fabric — really a miniaturized version of an adult outfit. An Easter bonnet for the girls might be a brimmed affair in straw with a ribbon tied around the chin, complemented by a pair of white gloves.

Saddle shoes had been around since early in the 20th century, but it was during the 1950s that they reached the height of their popularity with both girls and boys. These two-tone, flat shoes with laces were generally black-and-white, although there was also a fashion for red soles. Girls often wore them with bobby socks, a perfect coupling for the school hop. 

The camp collar shirt has various alternative names including bowling shirt, Cuban shirt, and safari shirt. The Helm website tells us that the most important characteristic of the camp shirt is “a soft, double-notched, one-piece collar that is sewn directly to the body of the shirt.” This arrangement means that the collar can lie flat against the body of the shirt.

These bizarre pieces of footwear with their exaggeratedly pointed toes originated in Britain in the 1950s. The shoes were worn by those who identified as Teddy Boys, a mid-century youth cult. The elongated sharp toes of the shoes gave them their name: winkles are a kind of shellfish enjoyed by the British and you need a sharp implement to extract the little creatures from their shells. Although nobody actually used their shoes to do this!

Parents liked pinafores because since they’re actually a type of apron it was a great way to keep their daughters’ clothes clean when the kids indulged in messy play. Having said that, pinafores became a fashion in their own right, much more than merely a protective garment. As time went on, they became fancier, sometimes decorated with pretty frills and evolving into pinafore dresses.

By the 1950s more and more boys — and some girls — were wearing blue denim jeans, which had once been exclusively workwear. Now, they had become a fashion item in their own right. A relaxed, informal look which is still familiar today — jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers — was born. In the 1950s boys often paired that look with a classic hairstyle, the crew cut.

For a smart but not-too-formal look — perhaps to attend a high-school dance — girls would wear pleated skirts. To complete the outfit they’d wear a bolero jacket, which was collarless, short, and featured an open front and long sleeves. We wonder how many children — or parents — knew that the stylishly tailored bolero jacket actually had its origins in the bullfighting rings of Spain.  

The Teddy Boys were an early youth cult born in the Britain of the 1950s and intimately connected with the eruption of raucous rock ‘n’ roll music. Their outfits were almost a parody of what a previous generation had worn during the Edwardian era of the early 20th century. Teddy Boys wore long, draped jackets, tight pants and implausibly pointed shoes called winklepickers (see above). 

Pea coats were originally designed for sailors in the 19th century — they were a standard uniform item for mariners with Britain’s Royal Navy. But somehow in the 1960s they were adopted as a fashion item by youngsters who had no intention of joining anybody’s navy. Part of the explanation for their sudden 1960s popularity may have been the fact that stars such as Robert Redford wore them on-screen. 

Miniskirts hit the shores of America after sailing across the Atlantic from the London of the swinging ’60s. They brought a large helping of controversy: conservative-minded folks were shocked to see all those female legs on display. But there was revolution in the air in the 1960s and as Mary Quant, the British designer credited with inventing the miniskirt, said to the New York Daily News in 2014, “A miniskirt was a way of rebelling.”

Bell-bottom pants were another iconic fashion of the 1960s, very much connected with the hippy movement, but also worn by children. There was no real logic to adding reams of extra material to the bottom of pants legs. But it was hardly the first time that rationality went out the window in the name of fashion. The look was great until it rained, when wearers found themselves dragging along swathes of soaking material as it flapped around their ankles. 

Romper dresses, often actually short pants with straps and bibs rather than dresses, originally appeared in the 19th century and were intended for babies. But in the 1960s older girls started to wear them as a useful garment that was well suited to the playground. For active young girls, the romper suit was much more practical than a classic dress.

Bangs — a fringe of cut hair hanging down over the forehead — were widely adopted by girls in the 1960s. It was not just an attractive look, it was also a highly practical style. Combined with a shorter cut, bangs meant that hair wasn’t continually falling across your face. In fact this highly functional style was not the preserve of girls — many women sported it as well. 

During the 1970s boys, and some girls too, were enchanted by the mythology of the Wild West. So it’s no surprise that the stylized clothing representing what was supposedly worn in the days of the cowboys and outlaws became a popular fashion for children. Stetsons, fringed vests and toy six-shooters were popular wear for many young boys, whatever the occasion. Fringed skirts gave girls the Wild West look.

If you were to look back at children’s clothing catalogs of the 1970s there’s something that would likely strike you as strange. Almost every one of them featured flame-resistant sleepwear. Naturally, the thought of a child being caught in a fire is horrible. But did boys and girls really need to sleep in fire-resistant pajamas or nightdresses every night?

One identifiable 1970s trend was an apparent obsession with plaid patterns. They seemed to be everywhere. Children’s shirts, sleepwear, pants, and jackets were all available in various versions of plaid. The plaid epidemic of the ’70s even infected furnishings. Why Americans should go overboard for a fabric that had originated as tartan in the Scotland of the 16th century remains an enduring mystery.

Denim jeans had been a desirable fashion item before the dawn of the ’70s. But once that decade got going, children’s jeans were the least of it. There were denim jackets, denim vests, and denim shirts. In fact, think of just about any item of clothing and it was almost certainly available in denim in the height of the 1970s craze for the fabric. 

A strange thing happened during the 1970s, and it involved shirt collars. Over the course of the decade, they just got longer and longer. Why should that have been? Unfortunately we have no answer to that question other than to say “fashion.” And whoever claimed that fashion had to have a basis in logic or sense? After the 1970s, just as mysteriously as they’d expanded, collars shrunk back to a normal size. 

One of the most striking cultural phenomena of the 1970s was on kids’ TV — Sesame Street. Children fell in love with the quirky characters who populated the show. Elmo, the Cookie Monster, Big Bird and others almost became part of the family. So it was only a small step for them to start appearing on children’s clothing and accessories, which they did in great numbers.

Cowl-neck sweaters swept the world of teenage girls during the 1970s: there was something about this style of knitwear collar that they just couldn’t resist. Looser than a polo neck and less formal than a turtleneck, this style just seemed to really hit the spot. Strangely, a cowl was originally a cloak worn by medieval monks.

How popular it actually was among children to be told that they were to wear an outfit which exactly matched one to be worn by a sibling is open to question. But in the 1970s many parents apparently thought this was a marvelous idea. It certainly looked cute, even if some kids were only tolerating this fashion with teeth firmly gritted.