Children's Lee Fashion Brand

Lee stands second in the L hub's listing order, and it carries the fullest company history in this letter. The company was formed in 1889 by Henry David Lee as the HD Lee Mercantile Company at Salina, Kansas producing dungarees and jackets. Every element of that founding sentence matters: the year 1889, the founder Henry David Lee, the original company name, the place Salina, Kansas, and the first products - dungarees and jackets, work garments from the very start. Lee's children's clothing grows directly out of that workwear root, as the timeline below shows.

The growth of Lee was prompted by the introduction of the Union-All work jumpsuit in 1913 and their first overall in 1920. Those two dated milestones structure the early record: 1913 brought the Union-All, a one-piece work jumpsuit, and 1920 brought the first overall - the garment that would lead, within the same decade, to children wearing Lee as well as adults. The record is a dated company history with a children's line inside it, given in full.

The 1920s: Zipper Fly and the First Children's Overall Line

Later in the 1920s Lee introduced a zipper fly and continued to expand. Around this time, the first children's overall line was sold. That pairing is the heart of this profile: the same decade that brought a practical innovation to the adult garments - the zipper fly - also brought Lee's first line made for children, overalls scaled and sold for kids. 'Around this time' is the dating for the children's line, rather than a single year.

In 1928 H.D. Lee, founder and president of The H.D. Lee Mercantile Company, died. The founder's death closes the company's first era, four decades after he formed it at Salina. During the 1930s and 1940s the company became the leading manufacturer of work clothes in the US. Leading manufacturer of work clothes is the standing recorded for those two decades - the workwear root of the founding sentence grown, by then, into national leadership in its category, with the children's overall line already part of the company's history.

The Lazy S Pocket and the Move Into Casual Wear

In 1944, the Lazy S became the official Lee back pocket. A back-pocket stitch becoming official in a stated year is the kind of detail that makes a denim brand recognisable from behind, and 1944 is the date assigned to it. For a children's profile the point is practical as well as historical: pocket stitching is one of the quickest ways to identify a genuine Lee garment, on a child's pair of jeans or overalls just as on an adult's, and the Lazy S name gives a shopper the exact term the company itself uses.

In 1954, Lee expanded into casual wear. That single closing sentence of the history records the company's second direction: beyond the work clothes it led in, into casual wear - the category a children's line naturally lives in once overalls and jeans become everyday school and play clothing rather than only work garments. Learn more about the kids Lee brand clothing at the brand's own site: the official Lee kids pages, linked in References below under the words kids Lee brand, where today's children's styles and sizes belong.

Buying Children's Denim and Overalls Well: General Standards

The buying guidance here is general children's denim guidance, labelled as a general standard and not as a claim about the current Lee range. Denim for children should be sturdy enough for playground wear yet soft enough after a first wash that a child will actually wear it; check bar-tacks and pocket stitching - including that back pocket - for even, unbroken sewing, and choose fastenings a child can manage alone as they grow more independent. Overalls, the garment at the root of this brand's children's history, earn their place by staying up without a belt and covering knees through rough play.

In short: formed in 1889 by Henry David Lee as the HD Lee Mercantile Company at Salina, Kansas, producing dungarees and jackets; growth prompted by the Union-All work jumpsuit in 1913 and the first overall in 1920; a zipper fly and continued expansion later in the 1920s, when the first children's overall line was sold; the founder's death in 1928; the leading manufacturer of work clothes in the US during the 1930s and 1940s; the Lazy S as the official back pocket in 1944; and an expansion into casual wear in 1954. The gallery below shows a 2017 photo of the Lee kids brand.

Photos