Figure 1.--This boy is proabably French. He wears a rather ordinary kneepants sailor suit with dark, perhaps blue, three-quarter length stockings. His mother has insisted, however, on him keeping his curls and adding little bows to his shoes.
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Figure 1.--This boy is proabably French. He wears a rather ordinary kneepants sailor suit with dark, perhaps blue, three-quarter length stockings. His mother has insisted, however, on him keeping his curls and adding little bows to his shoes. |
Mothers in the late 19th and early 19th centuries loved bows. They tied them on every where. Of course girls were the most common recipients, but many hapless boys also wore them around their collars, in their hair, on their pants, and even their shoes. Somewhat more common than pants bows was tieing bows on boys' shoes. This rather emulated a common 17th Century style. Louis XIV and other stylish pesonages of the era were so pictured. This was particularly
common for boys still in dresses or wearing fancy Fauntleroy suits, but boys in run of the mill sailor suits might also have shoe bows. This
was a particularly popular style in France. These bows were most commonly worn worn with strap shoes or patent leather shoes. Frequently the boys wearing these bows had long, often curled hair, but not always.
Mothers in the late 19th and early 19th centuries loved bows. They simply couldn't ger enough of them. ngegious mothers figured out how to put boys innvirtually any boy and any garment. Their bows were every where. They tied them on every where. Of course girls were the most common recipients, but many hapless boys also wore them around their collars, in their hair, on their pants, and even their shoes. Somewhat more common than pants bows was tieing bows on boys' shoes. This rather emulated a common 17th Century style. Louis XIV and other stylish pesonages of the era were so pictured. But the style had declined in the 18th century and was not seen with any frequency in the early 19th century. Oy appears to have reappeared in the late 19th. Interestingly, they were not commonly worn with Fauntleroy suits--at least not until the turn of the 20th century. Shoe bows appear to have been most common from about 1900-1920.
When we first saw examples of boys with bows on their shoes, we though that it was simply a fauning mother who decided to add a liyyle style to her sons's clothing. We have since noted quite a number of these images and now see that it was a popular style at the time and not just a few over zealous mothers. In fact we have also noted that shoes came with the bows already afixed, showing that it was a popular style. We are not sure when this was first done, but we note it being done in American 1910 catalogs.
Boys wearing bows on their shoes appear have include tose up tomabout 10 years of age.
These bows were most commonly worn worn with strap shoes or patent leather shoes. But they were not limited to these styles. The shoes appear to have been both black and white shoes. Strap shoes appear to have been most commonly worn with bows.
Figure 2.--These American boys in a photograph taken about 1915 wear bows on their shoes. One boy wears knnepants with whilte stockings. The other boy wears above the knee knickers with long stockings. |
Boys wearing bows on their shoes usually were wearing eith kneesocks or knickers. Boys inn ong pants did not wear bows on their shoes. Short pants became popular after the bow craze had begun to decline.
Boys did not commonly wear shoe bows during the peak of the Fauntleroy craze in the late 19th century. This was in part because the shoes they wore were boot-like shoes. Afte the turn of the 20th cerbntury, boys began to more commonly wear strap shoes and other shoe styles to which bows might be afixed.
The sailor suit may have been the outfits which boys with sdhoe bows most commonly wore. This was not because of any specific assiciation betwwern shoe bows and sailor suits, but rather because the sailor suit was such a commonly worn style for boys. Few boys from 1870 to 1920 grew up without wearing a sailor suitbat some time in his life.
The most common pants style to be worn with shoe bows was kneepants. This was primarily because they were the most common pantrs style during which shoe bows were nmost commonly worn,
Boys in knickers also wore shoe bows. This was not as common as kneepants, but available images do show younger boys wearing shoe bows with knickers. Often they were above the knee knickes worn with tunic suits. But some boys in regular knickers also wore them.
One common style worn with shoe bows were tunic suits. This is probably because it was style commonly worn bu younger boys at the time that shoes bows were most common, the yurn of the 20th century. Tunic suits were often worn with strap shoes--the shoe style most associated with shoe bows.
Boys wearing bows on their shoes seems to have been a particularly popular style in France. Available images show that it was also not unknown in America and Canada.
HBC has not information on what kind of bows were afixed to boys' shoes. Probably it was just normal ribbon tied on for special occassions.
As the available images are black and white photographs, HBC has no information on the color of the shoe bows. We think that they were mostly black or white, but there may have been colored bows as well. White bows appear to have been worn with white shoes and black or dark-colored bnows with black shoes. On some occassions white bows were worn on black shoes.
We have archived quite a number of boys who had their portraits taken with bows like this on their shoes. Unfortunately we have not yet been able to link all of them here. A good example is A. Balfour, a Canadian boy in 1898. Anotherexample is an American boy, Roy Chapman Hodgson, in the 1890s.
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