Figure 1.--This cabinet cards shows two boys, presumably brothers wearing Norfolk suits. They both have Eton collasrs and small floppy bows. The suits are similar, but not identical. The vertical pleating is less pronounced on the jacket the boy at the right is wearing. The boy sitting is wearing glasses. The photographer is Towne in Troy, New York. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1890s.

Norfolk suits consisted of a jacket with destinctive styling. The styling was all in the jacket. The matching trousers had none of the destinctive Norfolk styling. They were usually knee pants or knickers. It was the jacket had the very destinctive Norfolk design elements. We note collar-buttoning jackets and sack suit jackets with lapels. Nut this had nothing to do with the Norfolk styling. Various jacket styles were dome in both collar buttoning and lapel types. The basic Norfolk styling elements were 1) vertical pleats and 2) horizontal waist self belts. The well-tailored jacket was a loose belted jacket with a box pleating vertical design elements. The belting and pleats could vary widely. Some jackets only had the vents, but some had belts as well.

Jacket Types

There were two types of Norfolk jackets. We see both collar buttoning and lapel jackets. The collar-buttoning jackets are much more common in the early photographic record. We do not begin to see many lapel jackets until the 1880s, but we are still assessing this. The size of the collars in the 1880s-90s made this a little difficult to figure out. The boys here are a good example (figure 1). The large floppy bows also often covered the top of the sukit. At the time small, high set lapels were all the style and thus what seem like collar-buttoning jckets may actually have been lapel jackets. All of the lapel jackets were single breasted jackets. This is because double-breasted styling would interfere with the vertical pleating commonly associated with Norfolk styling.

Design Elements

One of the two important Norfolk design elements were what box pleats, often paired. There were different approached to the vertical elements or pleats. They also varied in prominance. Some are barely noticable while others stand out. The well-made Norfolk suit had these vertical pleats on the front and continued on the back. We are not sure all boys' suits had the vertical pleats continued on the back. This is impossible to tell from the photographic record. Some jackets only had the vertical elements. We believe that these were reffered to as Norfolk jackets even without the belts. Some had belts as well, but in the 19th century the vertical elements without the belts was the most common style were the most commom. The second Norfolk element was the horizontal waist self-belt. This was a partial self built done in the same material as the rest of the suit. We do not see the belts on many of the 19th century suits, but we see it very commonly on the 20th century Norfolk suits. We are not sure why all of the sudden, manufacturwrs decoded to add the belt. Like the vertical elements, the belts were done in various styles and approaches adding to the stylistic variety of the suit.

Created: 5:30 AM 1/2/2011
Last updated: 2:43 PM 3/4/2018