Figure 1.--This small photo was done with thin photo paper and kept in an album. The other photographs dated between 1896 and 1899. The boy wearing a pinafore is impressed with the giant clam shell.

Pinafores were worn in Australia, much like the pattern in England. They were commonly worn by girls in the 19th and early-20th century, but also worn by younger boys. HBC has few details from Australia and our Australian archive is limited, but clothing catalogs at the turn of the 19th century mentioned both childrens and girls pinafores. This suggests, of course, that younger boys and girls both wore pinafores and because they were identical they were sold as children's pinafores. The available advetisment from Lasseters, a Sydney Depatment Store, unfortunately lists prices, but not ages and sizes. The Lasseters advertisments offered three types of pinafores, for infants, children and girls.
Infants: The store offered four different styles of pinafores in increasing price ranges. All the infant pinafores were made of muslin. The regular pinafore was the least expensibe. More expensive omes were trimed in lace and embroidered. The most expensive were trimed in torchon lace.
Children: One child's pinafore was offered which with trimmed and embroidered.
Girls: Larger pinafores were offered in two styles. One had trimmed emroidery just liked the children's pinafore. The other had ticked frills.

Created: May 8, 1999
Spell checked: August 2, 1999
Last updated: 2:19 AM 2/9/2023