Figure 1.-- Here we see a cabinet card with German boy and his big sister, both wearing plaid dresses. The collars azre done differently. The girl has a larger collar worn with a locket. Notice the puff sleeves. The studio is Gebr. Brändlein in Schweinfurt. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1890s.

Color and patterns re another important feartures of dresses. Generally speaking, dresses could have bright er colors and nolder patterns than most other garments boys wore. Unfortunately we have very little information about dress colors becaise of the black-and-white photography of the 19th century. Tinted portrairs provide some clues. White dresses were very popular, especially for younger boys. We also see many colored dresses which unforunately we can not assess the colors. We have archived some tinted portraits on HBC. An example is an unidentified younger child we think in the 1890s. He is wearing a voluminous maroon dress. Tinted portraits are not color photographs and thus completely reliable. They are, however, a leflful indicator. We have more information about patterns which if course we can see in the photogreaohic record, although we can not tll the colors involved. One popular pattern was plaid in America and Britain. We also see plaif in Germany, but we are not sure how popular it was. We note both boys and girls wearing plaid dresses. We cam not yet determine gender conventions such as relative popularity. Dresses were done in mnu other patterns.

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Created: 7:42 PM 4/20/2010
Last updated: 12:20 AM 4/22/2010