Figure 1.--This cabinet pprtrair shows an unidentified boy with blond curls wearing a pleated skirt. The skit has wide pleats and is in a flst rather than a laid material. The photographer is Almstead in Staten Island. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the early 1890s.

A pleated garment could be a skirt or kilt. All kilts are pleated, but so are some skirts. The topic is somewhat complicatd by the fact that until the late-19th century, most clothes including children's clothes were made by seamstrisses or sewn at home by mother. This means that garments were not mass manufactured and could vary substantially. We are not sure just when skirt pleating began. The images we have found to date suggest that pleating except for kilts was not common for skirts until the 1880s, but this needs to be confirmed. The example here looks to be from the early-1890s (figure 2). A pleated skirt of course looks similsr to a kilt, but does not hve the front pannel oftn used for kilts. We note various types of pleats bing used. The pleated skirts look much like kilts, but did not have the front pannel.

Created: 10:56 AM 5/2/2010
Last updated: 10:56 AM 5/2/2010