Figure 1.--This unidentified Crewe boy wears a dress with lace trimmed collar and cuffs and pleates skirts. It could be a blouse and skirt, but notice the top and bottom are the same material and color which suggests a dress. Notice the broad-brimmed hat on the balistrade with and uptirned brim and only slightly rounded crown. Also notice the pantalettes. We are not sure about the the date, but the dark green CDV mount is done like a cabinet card. We would guess the early 1890s, bit are not at all sure. It could be the 1880s. The studio is S.A. Moon, in Crewe.

We have not found a lot of English images with children headwear with their dresses. We are not sure why. Our English aechive is growing but still not large. So we do not yet have a real sampling of dress images with headwear. Because of the age factor, boys and girls wore many of the same basic styles. Boys did not, however, wear the flowery decorated hats that some girls did. We believe the most common headwear was rounded crown hats with various width brims. In the 19th century wide brimmed hats with wide and medium brims were common. The boy's hat here is a good example/ The hat here has a wide brim, but only a slightly rounded crown (figure 1). After the early-20th century we no longer see noys wearing dresses, but we continue to see girls wearing these hats. Often the portaits do not shoe the top of thee hats, but some haf only slightly rounded crowns, Another hat was boaters, but they were not as common as rounded-crown hats. We rarely see caps being worn with dresses. We also see tams.

Created: 1:18 PM 7/27/2017
Last updated: 1:18 PM 7/27/2017