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boys' shirts : chronological trends -- United States America 1890s
American Shirt-like Garments: Chronological Trends--The 1890s
Figure 1.--Here we see four unidentified brothers. The boys look to be about 4-14 years old. The yoinger bot wears a light-colored classic Fauntleroy suit and blouse with a satin bow. The two middle boys wear identical double-breasted pants suits,m although done in different material. They wear with polkadot ruffled collared Fauntleroy blouses with large weight floppy bows. They have knee panrs and worn with black long stockings. (The older boys pants in the back are covered, bbut are very likely the same as the boy in front.) he older boy wears a single-breasted long pants suit with a large white tie. The collar tios are covered by the jacket lapels, bit are likely standard pointed tips.
The studio was Fowler in Neosho Falls, Kanses.
We see boys prominent collars, some very large. The youngest boys had the largest collars. There were all kinds. There were plain collars like Etons and Peter Pans. And ther were verry fancy ruffled and lace collars. There were mant detachable collars. But there were attached collars. Some of the fanciest were Fauntkeroy blouse with ruffled collars. -At the end of the century ruffled collars were poplar, sometimnes huge, worn both with and without floppy bows. There were also mlace collars, but ruffled collars were more common. Some ruffeled collars had lace trim. Ruffled collars were mot just for small boys, we see boys 12-13 years old wearing ruffled collars. Younger boys wore Fauntleroiy suits, Faontleroy blouses with cut-away jackets. Older boys wore the Fauntleroy blouses with regular suit jackets as we see here (figure 1). During the summer, boy might just wear their blouses without jackets. Boys might do this, but adults were expected to wear their suit jackets. While neckwear was optional, the collars were almost always buttoned. Often school age boys wore blouses with large collars and knee pants. Eton collars were popular for formal wear. The collars were for shirts, blouses, and short waists. The shirt waists were what was worn with detachable collars. Older boys had pointed cillars. Adult men commonly wore wing collars.
