Figure 1.--These unidentified Glasgow brothers had a CDV portrait taken in 1863. They wear identical front-buttoning tunic suits, but with skirts rather than pants. That is something that we rarely notice in the photographic record. There are other interesting aspects to this portrait. Click on the image for a fuller discussion. Image courtesy of the BP collection.

A tunic suit is primarily made up of a tunic and some kind of pants. Note the Peter Pan collar and the below the knee pants which could be bloomer knickers that the boy here is wearing (figure 1). The tunics could be done in many different ways. This included the collar and buttoning as well as length nd styling. The style of tunics may have been somewhat different than was common in America. HBC know less about tunic styles in Britain. We note some differences with the tunic suit here (figure 1) than what we normally see American boys were commonly wearing at the time. They were worn with various kinds of pants, including pantalettes, knee pants, bloomer knickers, and long pants. We note one portrait of boys wearing tunics with skirts. I don't think this was very common.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing kilt pages:
[Kilts] [Kilt suits] [Scottish kilts] [Scottish school uniform] [Highland dance] [Pipeband]
[Irish kilts] [Irish boys clothing] [Irish step dancing]
[Greek kilts]

Created: 6:06 PM 1/31/2008
Last updated: 6:06 PM 1/31/2008