Walk shorts

New Zealand formal 'Walk Shorts and Walk Socks'
The typical New Zealand formal 'Walk Shorts and Walk Socks' look, popular from the 50's till the late 70's/80's, then seeing a steady decline as a more casual and unkempt appearance swept the nation. NZ Walk Shorts and Socks in Cream & Green.

Walk shorts are a men's garment, which was popular in New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s as summer wear for white-collar workers. Walk shorts typically end above the knee and were traditionally worm with knee-high socks and leather shoes or sandals.[1]

The shorts are thought to have had their origins with the baggy khaki drill shorts worn by New Zealand soldiers serving in the Middle East in World War II. In the 1950s, the New Zealand Public Service Association union petitioned the State Services Commission to permit workers to wear shorts. Eventually the commission permitted staff to wear shorts in "white, grey or fawn", which was eventually relaxed to allow colour and print fashions of the time.[2]

The walk short is no longer commonly worn in New Zealand, but is considered an iconic item of Kiwiana.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Walk shorts, 1969". Te Awa. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  2. ↑ "The walk short story". PSA. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  3. ↑ Harvey, Helen (25 November 2015). "Junior doctors at Taranaki Base Hospital bring walkshorts back in fashion for a day". The Dominion Post. Retrieved 5 June 2017.

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.