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The kilts popularized by Queen Victoria continued to be a popular style
for boys. It was most popular in Britain, but fashion magazines show that it was also worn in France. The style reached America in the 1840s, but it was not until the 1870s
that large numbers of American boys--most with no or only the most
tenous conection to Scotkand--were outfitted in kilts. It seemed an
ideal choice for mother who were not yet ready to breech their sons. The kilt was the height of fashion for boys in England and France. It also crossed the Atlantic. It was not the Highland kilt, however that proved popular in America, but rather the kilt suit that had virtually no relationship with a true kilt, other than both were skirted garments.
A variety of diffrent styles were worn in the 1870s that were either kilts or related to the kilt style. Of paricular interest was the development of the kilt suit in America.
The proper Highland kilt with a Scotch cap, short jacket, plaid kilt, sporan, and kneesocks was primarily a British fashion. Theu are seen in French fashion magazines, but I'm not sure how widely they were worn.
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The kilt suit became an important fashion in the 1870s. They were widely worn in both France and America. In France they were usually not called kilt suits, but rather just suits. In America the term kilt suit was common. I'm noy sure how common the kilt suit was in Britain.
Kilts influenced dresses. Plaid dresses were especially popular for young boys. Presumably in the eyes of people in the 1870s, as the kilt was a man's garment, that made plaid a suitable material fora boy's dress. This is one of the first indicators that HBC has noted that parents and fashion designers were beginning to differentiate the dresses worn by young boys and girls.
One particularly popular style during the 1870s was double breasted styling. It was not only jackets that had double brasted styling. The skirts worn as part of the kilt suit might also have double breasted styling.
There was a great deal of similarity in the clothes worn by boys in the 1870s, but the kilt was one fashion which varied substaintally among countries.
We do not yet a page on Enlish kilts during the 1870s. We have archived some 1870s images. A good example is an unidentified English boy wearing a formal Highland outfit in 1877. This is a formal Highlands outfits complete with a sporan.
French boys in the 1870s might wear a Highland kilt with varying levels of the accompanying acoutements. Boys also wore skirtred suits. Fashion magazines show them in sizes up to age 8 years. They were generally referred to as just suits, not kilt suits. We notice the Proust brothers in France weaing kilt outfits.
I do not think German boys commonly wore kilts, it was probably to identifiably British for the nationaltically inclined Germans--due in part to their recent emergence as a new nation. I'm not sure if kilt suits were worn.
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American boys did not commonly wear Scottish Highland kilts. Rather they wore
kilt suits where the jacket and kilt were the same fabric. The colors did
not include bright red plaids like the dresses the boys wore, but rather
dark muted plaids. One American clothing magazine in 1879 comtained the
following description, "For a boy of 4 to 6 years we have a large plaid,
in blue and green, made double breasted, and
with a kilted skirt. Over this is a wide belt, cut on the bias, and
bound on bith edges with a braid. This is lined with stiff crimoline,
and fastened on the dress in place, except in front where it is left loose,
and fastens with a button and buttonhole. Pointed cuffs and a large
turnover collar, square at the back, over which a linnen one edged with
lace or Hamburg, is to be worn. If preferred, the kilted skirt can be
arranged to an under vest. It that case, the upper part is made into a
short paletot, and instead of the belt, trim the edge of the paletot
with a wide cross band of the plaid, piped either with silk, or bound with
braid. Large, smoke pearl are bone buttons are used (figure ?).
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