Figure 1.--This Dutch CDV shows an unidentified boy wearing a collar-buttoning jacket and knee pants suit. Notice the casually tied bow--different from the bows American boys werev wearing, although ghis was before the Fauntleroy era when giant floppy bows appeared. He also has an Eton-like collar. The portrait is undated, but looks like it may have been taken in the 1870s. (Given our smaller Dutch archive, we are less confident of our date dating estimates than those for America.) The studio was A. Boeseken in Rotterdam.

We begin to see dedicated children's clothes (19th century). The first such garment was the skeleton suit. Dutch boys like other European boys began wearing wore long pants suits before their fathers. This was all before the invention of phiotifraphy, so can not follow this in detail. Long pants dominated boys wear and perpetually adult men's wear through the mid-19th century. Suits could be worn quite tight in the early part of the century, but looser fits were more common by mid-century. Suits at mid-century were commonly worn with vests. Boys unlike their fathers might wear suits jackets without lapels, especially the younger boys. The cut-away jacket was common. As was the collar-buttoning jacket. The boy here is a good example (figure 1). Dutch styles were heavily unfluenced by the British and Germans, two countries with much larger ecomnomies. One British style which was not very influential was the Fauntleroy Craze. Not only do we not see that many Fauntleroy suits, but the acoutemrnts like large lace and ruffled collars and huge floppy bows were much less popukar in the Netherlands than Britain. More importasnt was the sailor suit. There was a major shift in the pants worn in the Netherlands and much iof Europe after mid-century. Long pants were still important (1870s). The first knee pants were quite long, often not all that much above the ankles. Calf level was common. Knee pants gradually increased in importance and eventually raeched knee length. Knee pants suits were common by the late-19th century. We are not sure just when knicker suits appeared and how prevalent they were.

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Created: 7:08 PM 5/11/2023
Last updated: 11:09 AM 5/15/2023