Figure 1.--This 1909 portrait shows two American brothers wearing matching single breasted knee pants suits. These boys seem to be close in age, perhaps 10-12 years old. Notice the detachable starched collars, always worn with collar pins, and the somewhat unexpectedly splashy and colorful neckties. These sraight-leg knee pants trousers have ornamental buttons (at least in the case of the standing boy). The high-top shoes would be usual, as are the long black stockings. There is a hint of garter clasp on the right leg of the boy who is sitting just at the hem of his trouser leg. These boys could have worn either underwaists with supporters attached or suspender waists. They are on the edge of the point where the transition to a more masculine support garment would normally occur. Very typical middle-class American dress-up clothes for boys just finishing up primary school.

We see several different types of suit jacket in the 1900s. The dominant style was the sack suit done in both single- and double-breasted styles. Sack suits were suits wih lapels and we see suits with both large and mall lapels. The boys here had single-breasted jackets with fairly large lapels (figure 1). We are still working on which was more common, but we see many small lapels set high on the jacket. Our preliminary imptession is that the small lalels were a 1890s style which declined in the 1900s. Thus needs to be confirmed. A very substantial number of these suits were the lapel sack suits. There were different stylistic features. Some were done with Norfolk styling. Norfolk styling was popular in the early-20th century. We see Eton collars, but do not see Eton suits. Etons collars were much more popular in England. Younger boys still wore collar buttoning suit jackets with collars rather than lapels. This was a very common style in the 19th century which had by the turn of the 20th century had substanially decline. We still, however, see some. This would be the last decade that we see them. Younger boys might wear Fauntleroy suits, but this style was going out of style. And we see fewer boys wearing the classic cut-away jackets. More common for younger boys were sailor suits. We still see quite a number of younger boys wearing sailor suits. They were done in several different styles. Not as many as in the 1890s, but we still see quite a few.

Created: 12:21 AM 6/27/2019
Last updated: 12:21 AM 6/27/2019