Figure 1.--.Thus CDV portrait shows an unidenrified boy wearing a low neckline collarless dress. He is proably wearing some kind of shift underneath, but nothing is visible at the shoulders are arms. We are not sure hiw to date this, but would guess the 1870s. The studio is Seeley in Richmond, a London sunburb.

There are two types of open neckline treatmemt. There are open collars and there are collarless dresses. Open collars were dresses with collars, but they were not closed or buttoned collars. Unlike boys' boys' blouses and shirts, dresses normally buttoned in the back rather thsn the front. As a result open collars did not mean that they were unbuttoned. There were no buttons to button in most dresses. It did mean that there were commonly generous openings which could be done in various shapes, round, square and V-shapes. There were also open necks, meaning dresses without any collars at all. Here we see a collarless dress without sleeves looking rather like the front and back of the dress was just tied together at the shoulders. Note the shouldr bows. This was a common 19th century decoration on guel's desses. They symbolized the leading strings that young children used to have as they were learning to walk. Only girls wore then on their dressess even when they were older.

Created: 3:10 AM 9/28/20198
Last updated: 3:10 AM 9/28/2019