School Uniform: The Eton Suit


Figure 1.--This 1931 photograph shows two young Etonians with their upper-crust parents attending the annual Eton vs Harrow cricket match at Lords in London. Click on the image to see a Harrow boy in his school uniform at the same event.

One of the most inflential school suits in 19th century was the Eton suit. The Eton suit varied somewaht over time. The full Eton suit consisted of a top hat, short jacket, waistcoat, tie, Eton collar, land long trousers. The colors and patterns varied from school to school. They also varied within the school, depending upon the boy's status at the school. We are not sure precisely when the Eton suit first appeared, but were being worn in the eraly 19th century. The Eton suits were worn at Eton (and with slight variations) at some other public schools. Because of the cost of a full Eton suit, it was not copied beyond a select number of elite public (private schools). Elements of the Eton suit, especially the collar, were adopted by large numbers of English schoolboys as well as boys in several foreihn countries.

Importance

One of the most inflential school suits in 19th century was the Eton suit. The Eton suit varied somewaht over time. Because of the cost of a full Eton suit, it was not copied beyond a select number of elite public (private schools). Elements of the Eton suit, especially the collar, were adopted by large numbers of English schoolboys as well as boys in several foreihn countries.

Garments

The full Eton suit consisted of a top hat, short jacket, waistcoat, tie, Eton collar, land long trousers. The colors and patterns varied from school to school. Eton for example had striped trousers while other schools had solid colored trousers. They also varied within the school, depending upon the boy's status at the school.

Chronology

We are not sure precisely when the Eton suit first appeared, but were being worn in the eraly 19th century.

School

The Eton suits were worn at Eton (and with slight variations) at several other public schools. At this tiome we only know of a few of the schools where the Eton suit was worn.

Eton

While Eton College did not conceive of the idea of school uniform in England, the uniform it introduced in large measure initiated the modern traditions of school uniforms in Britain. Eton College was one of the many British schools which introduced school uniforms in the mid-19th Century. The sober suit influenced the uniform adopted by other schools as well as the clothes of British boys of all classes. The resulting Eton suit, as it is now known, became an emensely popular fashion for school age boys both in Britain and America. It is apparently the only public school uniform that went on to become widely worn by boys--many of whom may never had heard of Eton College. The Eton suit and collar was widely worn by boys in the late 19th and early 20th Century. It is unclear to the author why it was the Eton suit, and not the uniforms at other public schools, that became such a standard of boyhood fashion. Perhaps it was the prestige of Eton College. Even other public schools adopted uniforms incorporating the destinctive Eton collar as well as other features of the Eton suit. Actually Eton School had two different uniforms. The uniform we now think of with the stiff whitecollar and short jacket was the junior uniform. Senior boys wore long jackets with tails. Boys when they reached 5 ft 4 in were allowed to wear the senior uniform. But this meant that shorter boys might have to wear the junior uniform even at 16 or 17. Finally in 19?? the school abolished the junior uniform and all boys now wear tails.

Harrow

We have not obtained much information on Harrow yet. A Harrow school uniform can be seen on the social class page. Some Harrovians wore light-coloured waistcoat, which were permitted to wear with their Eton suits on special occasions. Eton boys were restricted to buttonholes. The Eton suit continued as the dress for juniors at Harrow into the 1960s. A photograph shows boys attending a memorial service for Old Harrovian Winston Churchill in 1965.

King's School, Tynemouth

King's Schools was one of many new public schools that appeared in the late-19th century. We don't know if the boys at Kings' School wore top hats, but we know they wore Eton suits with the classic Eton collars. We see one boy wearing his Eton suit with a polkadot cross tie, we think in the 1890s. We don't know if this was standard. We don't see any boys at other schools wearing ties like this which seem a bit trendy for a public school..

Social Class

Until relatively recently, fashion was primarily set by the aristocracy or wealthy class. The average person, who often had little disposable income, tended to wear utilitaian clothing, often with limited attention to fashion. This changed tadically in the 19th century when the new indutrial economy radically increased personal income and the size of the middle class. Many families which before could give little attention to fashion sudenly found that they had the income to dress themselves and their children fasionably. The Eton suit and collar was one of the styles associated with this development. The Eton suit was initually the style worn by the boys at an exclusive English "public" school. Mothers all over England came to want to dress their sons in this initially posh style. As a result by the late 19th century virtually every English boy was wearing the Eton collar--no mater how humble his background. The full Eton suit complete with a top hat was an entirely different matter. While the detachable Eton collars were within the range of virtually evert family--a full Eton suit involved quite an expenditure. After World War II, class attitudes toward fashion begin to change. Boys from wealthy families continued to wear Eton collrs for a while, but the average English boy soon changed to more comfortable soft collars.







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Created: March 15, 2002
Last updated: 6:30 AM 9/25/2009