Figure 1.--Boys wore lace collars with a variety of garments. This San Francico boy wears a pin-on lace collar with what Looks like a Norfolk suit. The boy's name seems to be Milton Wilder. although the writing is indestinct.

The Little Lord Fauntleroy suit is the garment most associated with the lace collars worn by American boys. The lace collar, however, was worn by boys long before Mrs. Burnett wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy. We note other garments worn with lace collars besides Fauntlerpy suits. Some boys wearing kilt suits wore them with lace collars. And we also see boys wearing regular suits with lsce collars.

Little Lord Fauntleroy Suits

It was in the 1880s with the popularity of Mrs. Burnett's book, Little Lord Fauntleroy, that they became really popular--at least with mothers. No where was the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit and accompanying lace collar more popular than in America. In many ways the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit was one of the first detinctive American styles, although fancy velvet suits for boys were first worn in Europe. The American Fauntleroy suit was generally worn with a lace or ruffled collar. Boys still in dresses also sometime wore lace collars.

Fauntleroy Blouses

The classic Little Lord Fauntleroy suit was worn with a small velvet jacket to make up the full Fauntleroy suit. The classic Fauntleroy suit had a small cut-away jacket which was worn open at the front to best display the elaborate ruffled and lace trimed blouses. There were different types of Faunteleroy blouses. It could be worn with other suits or even without a suit jacket. The blouses came in a miriad of materials and styles.

Kilt Suits

We note a number od American boys wearing kilt suits with lace collars. A good example is an unidentified New Jersey boy in the 1870s.

Suits

Tunics

Tunics were worn throughout the 19th century, but varied widely in popularity from decade to decade. Atv tghe turn of the 20th century, we see many boys wearing tunic suits. They became very popular (1900s and 10s). There were both dressy and play styles. We do not see many boys wearing tunics with ringlet curls in the 19th century, but we do see quite a few in the early-20th century. This was at a time that ringlet curls and other Fauntlroy styling was rapidly going out of style and that tunics had suddenly become very popular most of the examples we have found come from the 1900s. Ruffled collars were more common, but we do see examples of lace collars as well. A good example is Ivan Eugene Perry in 1906-07. We are not sure how to describe Ivan's tunic suit, but it seems to be similar to a Buster Brown-style tunic. We find far fewer examples in the 1910s, especially with the out break of World War I (1914-18).

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Created: 1:23 AM 3/14/2010
Last updated: 6:05 PM 10/3/2013