What The Field Of Fashion Brought To Fashion In The Field

By Nancy K. Crevier

Soldiers wear them, marching bands wear them, and school children wear them. Police and fire units have seasonal ones and dress ones, as do mail carriers and delivery people. They are lightweight, heavy weight, drab or colorful. Uniforms are truly the fabric of a group, and nowhere do we see that more than with school sports teams.

Sports teams have identified themselves over the decades through distinctive wear that separates one group from another and gives them a sense of unity and pride. Certainly comfort and practicality play a part in the design and choice of a team uniform, but taking a look back, one can see sports fashions are influenced by the world around us and social mores, as well.

Newtown High School has had its ups and downs in the uniform departments, with hemlines and necklines rising and dipping as the decades dictate.

In 1911, sports teams at Newtown High School consisted of a football team, a boys’ basketball team, and a girls’ basketball team. Coming out of nearly a three-quarter century reign of prim Victorian standards and prudent attitudes, it is surprising to find the uniforms of 1913 reflecting varying degrees of modesty. Tight, sleeveless tanks tops with a broad horizontal stripe across the chest showed the muscular (and generally hidden from view) arms of the boys’ basketball team. Granted, the belted shorts fell midthigh, but for the day, a gander at a fair amount of leg was available.

The football team, on the other hand, tucked tall, banded socks into ankle high boots. Long sleeved, turtleneck shirts were worn beneath jerseys whose most notably different feature from modern-day uniforms was the small size of the shoulder padding. Fitted, padded pants, not dissimilar from those the Nighthawks don in 2005, completed the 1911 uniform.

Now the girls’ basketball team, on the other hand, still was held under the sway of the Victorian era in the early 1900s. Collared blousons topped puffy pantaloons that fell below the knee. Long stockings covered the dainty ankles and knees, creating a shapeless silhouette sure not to inappropriately arouse spectators.

One has to wonder how active a game the girls were able to play in 1911, when there appeared to be more swish to the skirt than the basketball hoop.

The sports uniforms at Newtown High School varied little during the next several years, as photos from The Bugle, Newtown High School’s yearbook, testify.

In 1921, the girls’ basketball team for Newtown’s short-lived second school, Newtown Community School, sported a jazzier outfit, perhaps a reflection of the Jazz Era that the country entered around that time. Sailor-style blouses with knotted ties were worn with pantaloons that began to creep up the leg a bit, exposing a risqué bit of knee above the long, dark socks.

By 1926, perhaps for ease of movement, perhaps in response to the influence of the Roaring Twenties, basketball fans got to see more leg, as the length of the boys’ shorts crept up their legs. Certainly, the bobbed hairstyles the 1929 girls’ basketball team flaunted and the modern-day look of V-neck T-shirts with midthigh shorts was a jump shot for girls’ sports fashions.

By the late 1920s and into the 1930s, the Great Depression and the crash of the stock market had stymied spending. Uniforms for Newtown High School sports teams were frozen in time. Not until 1937 does the high school yearbook depict a change in style, when the girls’ basketball team sported a T-shirt style, collared shirt over fitted shorts. In a daring move, knee socks stepped aside for socks rolled down to the ankle.

World War II raged from 1939 to 1945, and the only uniforms in the news were those worn by the thousands of Americans who served their country. School sports uniforms, at least in Newtown, held steady with the styles of the previous decade.

The yearbook of 1946 finds the high school with a new uniform to photograph: boys’ baseball. Anyone who had the opportunity to watch the Newtown Sandy Hook Vintage Base Ball Team this summer has a good idea of the uniform of the mid-40s. A V-neck, button front jersey trimmed in braid was worn over belted, loose fitting knickers. Tall, striped knee socks completed the look for the NHS team that year.

Meanwhile, the short hems for the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams continued to rise with the improved economy.

As the 40s headed into the mid-20th Century, the feminine influence of fashion seems to have had a hand in the choice of uniform for the NHS girls’ basketball squad. The team posed for their yearbook picture decked out in dressy blazers over button front blouses — and skirts. Arguably, the short skirts allowed for greater ease of motion, but the boys’ team wisely stuck with shorts.

A Team With No Uniformity

The girls’ soccer team makes its first appearance in the 1949 yearbook, but there was no uniformity in what they wore. The mish-mash of shorts and shirts gave way in 1951 to a look that would certainly have given Beat poet Allen Ginsberg something to howl about. Alas, a baggy, snap-front, collared jumpsuit suited more to prison wear than soccer was the uniform of choice for the 1951 girls’ soccer team. Was it a premonition of the conservative McCarthy era ahead, or simply a fashion faux pas?

Boys’ track and soccer pictures began to appear in the 1950s yearbooks. 1956 saw both the boys’ basketball and track teams decked out in outfits made of a glossy, shiny material and included the same, slick warm-up pants. A short-sleeved, zip-front shirt with a collar gave the whole ensemble a rather space-age look, not so surprising, as it was in the 1950s that the United States heavily promoted the wonders of science.

John F. Kennedy, The Bay of Pigs incident, the Vietnam War, and the psychedelic LSD experiments of Harvard psychology instructor Timothy Leary ushered in the 1960s. The turned on, tuned in, turned off masses and rebellious mobs evidently passed by Newtown High School. Uniforms for that era remained oddly conservative. As a matter of fact, the girls’ soccer and basketball team uniforms consisted of short sleeve blouses beneath jumpers, and the boys’ teams had abandoned the shimmery look for plain cotton tanks and shorts with elastic bands.

In 1964 the boys’ baseball team switched to a rather Yankees-ish look of pinstripes, their first real change since banding together.  Likewise, the football team, whose fashion statement had remained practically static since inception, had a new look of big, broad shoulder pads, a helmet fitted lower on the head and, finally, facemasks. The closest the NHS teams of the 60s seemed to get to psychedelic were some unusually snappy striped socks for the boys’ basketball team.

The turmoil of the Vietnam War and Nixon’s resignation ruled the nation for the early 1970s. Newtown’s girls’ teams responded by keeping a calm, conservative look to their sports fashions. The basketball and field hockey teams opted for blouses, knee socks, and plaid skirts. The girls’ swim team suit was a plain, very modestly cut tank, although in 1975, a colorful, flowered tank suited the team. Go flower power! Girls’ volleyball was becoming a popular sport, and the 1975 team chose a subtle V-neck top and conventionally cut short.

A Whole Lot Of Leg

At the same time, the boys’ swim team was taking a more radical approach to their uniform. The longer they grew their hair, the shorter they wore those trunks. Always short and tight for speed, an even lower cut waistband and higher cut leg in the 70s was not leaving much to the imagination. Remember, this was the era of the Speedo…. Could that have been the influence on the boys’ basketball shorts, which in the 70s promoted a whole lot of leg?

The 60s and 70s may have been thought of as the psychedelic years, but clearly the 1983 boys’ basketball team had a flashback with the purchase of their warm-up pants. Huge, vertical stripes must have made them impossible to miss no matter where they were. A bonding experience via uniform? Maybe not.

A silky jersey and loose fitting shorts gave the 1983 boys’ soccer team the fashion edge, and as the 80s segued into the 90s, both boys’ and girls’ teams began to have a more unisex look. Girls’ and boys’ soccer teams were on equal footing, with long-sleeved striped polo shirts and side vented shorts. Basketball uniforms for both sexes were similarly equalized in style and quality by the 1980s, although the girls’ continued to favor a sleeved top over the tank top style worn by the boys’ team.

An ice hockey team, track and field teams, tennis, softball, and wrestling teams were all on the scoreboard at Newtown High School by the end of the 90s, each with its own uniform that defined who team members were for schoolmates and visitors alike. Be it bulky or scanty, the uniform created an identity that set each team apart. New Age materials matched the New Age attitude.

The cool and casual position of the Bill Clinton years of presidency kept the uniforms of the 90s at cruising speed. Then, as the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal created political upheaval in Washington, D.C., Newtown High School encountered some political (or politically correct) upheaval of its own. The biggest change to the Newtown High School sports teams’ uniforms came about in 1996 when, after 77 years as the mascot, the Indian was dropped in a controversial move. The golden-headed hawk of The Newtown Nighthawks became the new symbol of the school, and a rash of new uniforms, letter jackets, and warm-up gear appeared, not so different in style, but sans any reference to the Indian.

Not sure if their loyalty lay with their old mascot, and not yet ready to embrace the nighthawk, Newtown uniforms in the late 90s, for the most part, simply reflected pride in the town. “Newtown,” in a variety of scripts, embellished the uniforms. One exception was the boys’ soccer team. “Goatsuckers” announced its 1997 T-shirt, as it poked fun at the new nighthawk with a reference to one of the more unflattering nicknames of the bird.

Maybe it was the solemnity of 2001 that influenced the field hockey team to switch from the raucous plaid to a quiet, solid colored skirt as part of its uniform. At any rate, it was one of the few changes to the field hockey uniform pictured in the Newtown yearbooks in three decades.

Basketball shorts began their descent after years of rising up, up and away. By 2004, the Newtown High School boys’ basketball team had been in existence for 94 years, and in a nod to its original uniform,  knee-length shorts were the look of the year. Unlike the tight-fitting tank of the post-Victorian 1911 team, though, the checked-trim tank was a looser, less formfitting top.

Do the more modest uniform fashions herald a return to an era of uptight Puritanism or midcentury McCarthyism, or are we simply comfortable now with who we are? Maybe the teams agree with Yves Saint Laurent: Fashions fade, style is eternal.