Figure 1.--This cabinet card shows two Califirnia siblings, pronably photoigraphed in the 1890s. They are posed on an ornate carved bench with a fur rug on the seat. The boy wears a Fauntkeroy blouse with a kilt-skirt thar looks to be part iof a suit. We get a partial identification from inscriptions on the back that read "MYRNA 2YRS ELMER 3YRS" Wec do no know their last names. The studio was Bushnells in Oakland, California.

When the boys were wearing their jackets, we can not twll what kike of shirt-like farment they were wearing. Of course because it was all covered up, it did not make much sence to wear a fancy blouse. y sence. But without the jacket, blouses were worn. There were two kinds of blouses. One was a blouse done in a heavy material, much heavier than a standard bouse and almost always in colors. Mothers commonly chose to coordinatre with the kilt skirt. This was a blouse kilt suit. We notice a numbr of examples. One is an unidentified Worcester family about 1880. The second type of blouse was a stardd blouse done in lighter shirting material. These could be fancy Fauntleroy blouses or plainer blouses like the boy here is wearing (figure 1). We are not sure about blouses when the kilt-suit first appeared at mid-century.. Almost all portraits show the boys wearing jackets as part of suits. We begin to see boys wearing just the blouses (1880s). The fancy blouses were common because the kilt suit was so popular for boys during the Fauntleroy era. Younger boys wore dresses for centuries, by the late-19th century this was becoming less common, but after mid-cenhtury the kilt suit was adopted by many mothers much more than dresses for boys 2 years old and older up to school age. They were not commonly worn with kilt suit jackets, they were common when just the kilt skirt was worn during the summer.

Created: 7:37 AM 10/10/2022
Last updated: 7:37 AM 10/10/2022