Figure 1.-- Here we have a cabinet card showing five children, we think with their grandmother. The children look to be about 3-15 years old. The two older boys wear Eton collars. The two younger boys wear blouses with plain, but very large collars. The portrait is undated, but the clothing and mount styles help to date it to the 1890s, probably the late-1890s. The studio was Albert E. Coe in London.

The Eton collar continued to be widely worn in the 1890s. The Eton collar has an upper-class look to us today. Now it is true, that the DEton collsr was a stled that developed at a prestgious English pivate boarding school. It was adopted at many other private schools in England. Although they were private, fee-paying schools, the British refer to them as public schools. Here the collar story gets a little complicated. In the 19th century as during almost all of history, styles were set by the upper classes. In fact many countries had sumptuary laws, prohibiting commoners from dressing like their social betters. And thes impact of the upper classes affected schoolwear and boys wear in general. Not only was the Eton collar adopted at many private schools, but many boys in the developing state education system wore Eton collars to school. We see tht clearly in the school photogrphic record. This same dynamic also affected ordinary dress which we see in the family photograpic record. The standard Eton collar had a pointed tip. But we see a lot of Eton-like collars with out a sharply pointed collar. We also see fully rounded collars--basically a Peter Pan collar, although the term was not used at the time. Actually we see English boys wearing quite a range of the detachable collars. Quite a few were not the standard pointed Eton collars. In addition to the fancy Fauntleroy collars for younger boys, we also see plain, but very large collars. In England but not Anerica, these plain white collars were actually more common than the fancier Fauntleroy collars.

Created: 12:43 AM 7/8/2023
Last updated: 12:43 AM 7/8/2023