Even Rompers Needed French Cachet: McCalls Kiddy Patterns in 1928
Although rompers had been worn by American children before 1928, these were supposed to follow French fashion, as the words “L’Echo de Paris” indicated in the pages of McCalls Magazine. While Paris fashion houses were seen as the source of all new trends for women’s clothing, here they were supposedly also the source for children’s clothing.
The first rompers in America had straps at the shoulders and were touted as a way to let children get their vitamin D through exposure to the sun as a time when vitamins were the big news in popular science. These sewing patterns, sold by McCalls, instead took the idea of the blouse and attached it to the puffy short pants that made up rompers. Notice the details as a result: buttons, collars an cuffs in contrasting fabrics, and the pink one has a yoke from which gathers fall while the floral one has little shoulder pleats. The pink one looks like it has piping at the collar and cuffs while the floral one’s collar is shaped and top-stitched. A lot of detail for something for a small person. Of course, they expected them to be made in cottons, an easy to wash fabric, very practical for little people who roll around on lawns.
The pink one has snaps at the crotch to make it easy for a little person to use the bathroom, while the floral one has a buttoned drop seat. Tots’ jumpsuits were thus more practical than those often sold to women these days. Not that I am suggested we improve on women’s rompers. It is ok by me if we grownups have shirttails to tuck in.