United States Oliver Twist Suits: Color


Figure 1.--The portrait of these American children is undated, but looks to have been taken in the late-1910s, perhaps wven the late 1910s. The fact that the long stockings are not black is helpful in the dateing. The tinting provides some useful color information. Note how the darker color has been used for the parts and detailing the blouse. The boys here look about 4-5 or 6 years old. Two colors were normally used for these suits. Note the neckwear here seems to be a third color. Of course tintined photographs sare not definitive information on color, but they do offer helpful clues.

Color was an important stylistic device used in Oliver Twist suits. Oliver Twist were done in a wide variety of color combinations. Less commonly do we see single colar suits. And when they do, they is usually contrasting color detailing. While we often can not differentiate the colors used in available photographs, it is quite obvious that colors were employed. Commonly there were different colors for the blouse and pants. A common approach was to do the blouse top in a kight color or white. Often the pants were a darker color. Colored tops are nostly see in single-color suits. The darker color of the pants was often picked up for color detailing on the blouse. Collars and cuffs were commonly done in the darker contrasting color. Colors was also used in the neckwar employed. The darker color pants convention was not always used, but it was very common. Almost always there were two colors and not threee. A range of colors were used. We think blue in various shades was very common, but many other colors were used. Here the black and white photography of the day complicates our assessment, but period catalogs often provide basic color information, but do not specify shades.







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Created: 9:31 PM 6/11/2008
Last updated: 9:31 PM 6/11/2008