Clothes for the Active, Playing Child in Sweden in the 1920s to 50s

Abstract

The discourse of the active, playing dressed child was constructed in Sweden, at the time when the Swedish version of the welfare state Folkhemmet (The people’s home) was built, during the 1920s-1950s. The view that children had to be able to move freely in their clothes while playing was materialized by both state experts and representatives of the market. They agreed that clothes should be suitable “for playing and romping in sun and rain”. The article describes how the discourse of the active, playing dressed child was expressed in advertisements, in advisory booklets and in the magazine Husmodern (The Housewife). Further it discusses
what material features clothes designed for play were supposed to have and it brings up how the discourse of the active, playing dressed child relates to two other constructions of the dressed child, namely the resource demanding and the fashionable dressed child.