Figure 1.--This American boy wears a very large lace collar with bow, and lace cuffs. He has a kilt suit with decorative buttons. His hair is curled into long ringlets. Photographed by Frank Pearsall, Brooklyn, New York. The portrait is undated, but was probably taken about 1890. The collar seems to be part of the blouse. We are less sure about the cuffs.

Lace collar blouse were done in many different sizes. We see very small collars that were barely visible in old portrais. And we see lace collars that seem to engulf small boys. The larger collars in relative termswere reserved for the younger boys. The larger collars were less likely to be pure lace collars, but many had some lace worked into them, often in the edging. Others had only a small anount of lace, usually a lace trim or edgeding to a larger collar. A good example of edging is Joe Meyers. Generally the largest collrs were ruffled collars. Lace could be quite expenive, but gthis of course depended on the quality of the lce. It was thus possible to make a more modestly priced large collar as a ruffled collar than a lace collar. Of course younger children are so small that they can have what looks like a very large collar, but does not use as much lace as would be used on a small adult collar.

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Created: 5:20 AM 12/27/20077
Last updated: 5:20 AM 12/27/2007