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Catalogs and advertisements in 1895 offered a wide range of boys suits. The selection would appear to be much more varied than availavle for boys today. American boys primarily wore kneepants in the 1890s. Most suits came with kneepants. Sailor suits were also very popular. A Montgomery Ward's catalog provides a great deal of useful information on popular clothing styles in 1895. Two of the pages have boys' clothes--the first with a variety of knee pants suits as well as blouses for other boys and other fashions. Illustrations were still relatively limited and largely buried in pages primarily full of ad copy. Most American children, both boys and girls, boys wore long stockings. Black long stockings were especially popular. We note ads for long stockings and children's garter waists and shoulder hose supporters to hold them up.
Kilt suits were still popular garments for younger boys.
Blouse and shirt waists had no tails. They were made for both children and women. They either butoned on to the pants or underwaists or had draw strings to close them at the waist. Generally blouse waists were for younger boys thasn shirt waists, but here manufacturers and retailers were not always consistent about how they used these terms. We have some information from the 1895 Ward's catalog on these garments. We note these waists being made for boys up to 14 years of age. Neither style is tucked into the knee pants with which they would have been worn. The "Shirt Waists" have no waist buttons at the bottom hem and were worn over the waistline of the knee pants. Note that the hem is straight and comes down just an inch or two over the trousers. The "Blouse Waists" are bloused and have a draw-string in the bottom hem so that that the hem can be tightened around the waist to create the blousing effect. These were probably also worn outside the trousers (i.e., knee pants).
Older boys and men wore shirts. Shirts unlike waists had tails.
We note outfits looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy suits, although this term was not always used. Ward's used the term Zouave suit, I think based upon the small, cut-away jackets.
Ward's offers two suits that we would call Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. They are under the heading "Juvenile Suits" and Ward's calls them Zouave suits. We have not noticed this term being extensively used to describe Fauntleroy suits. We are not precisely sure why Ward's used this term. Perhaps the term "Fauntleroy" was beginning to acquire negative connotations. Zouave with its military connotations may have been see as a more attractive marketing term. The suits were made in sizes 3-7 years.
Sailor suits were also very popular and were available in different styles.
Ward's offers two type of sailor suits. The first was called reffer suits. These have what look somewhat like reffer jackets rather tham middy blouses. There were a surprising number of reffer suits available in what Ward's calls "nobby styles". We notice that Wards calls some of the sailor suits it offers "Zouave suits. These appear to be traditional sailor suits. We have no idea why the term Zouave suit was used.
Catalogs in 1895 offered a wide range of boys suits. The selection would appear to be much more varied than available for boys today. The three basic styles (collar buttoning, single breasted lapel, and double-breasted lapel) can be seen in the Ward's image here.
Ward's offered a wide range of children's suits. The term children was used, but the sizes included youth sizes to age 14 or 15 depeending on the suit. The many different suits are not described in detail but the illustration suggests that they were all kneepants suit. There are no long pants suit's illustrated. The styles include collar buttoning, single breasted lapel, and double-breasted lapel suits (figure 1).
Here Ward's offered several suits which they called Windsor suits. We have no idea just why they were referred to as Windsor suits. The jacket looks very similar to the double-breasted jackets offered under "Children's suits". The only thing we can think that detinguishes these suits is that they a "yacht cap" came with it. There were two pairs of kneepants with this suit, but that would not have affected the name. We are unsure how a "yacht cap" would have suggested Wundsor other than an association of Windor (Castle) and the British royal family with yachting. We are unsure just what the yacht cap looks like as it is not destinct in the illustration.
The Ward's three piece suits with vests ( waistcoats ) were designed mainly for older boys and that the sizes in most cases go up to age 16 and begin with age 12. Only one suit of this type is made for a boy as
young as 10. The wearing of a vest with a suit was obviously considered more grown up. Unfortunately, Ward's did not offer us a illustration of these suits.
HBC in 1893 has noted both kneepants and long pants. We have not noted either short pants or knickers. American boys primarily wore kneepants in the 1890s. We see knee pants earlier, but they were mostly for younger boys. During the 1890s we begin to see teenagers wearing knee pants. Most suits came with kneepants, but there were long pasnts for teenagers. The choice of pasnrs varied from family to family..
The dominant form of hosiery for American children in 1895, both boys and girls, was long stockings. We note catalog offerings and advertisements for hosiery, mostly long stockings. Black long stockings were especially popular. We notice other colors as well, usually colors to match a suit. Most were dark colors. White was not very commonn, although this was changing. Socks were not very common, in contrast with Europe. Boyys might go barefoot and thus nit wear hose, but if they wore shoes they almost always wore them with long stoickings. Holding up the stockings was a problem, especially with shorters pants ad skirt lengths. As a result a variety of stocking supporters were developed. We also notice a range of items need to hold the stockings up. A page in the 1895 Ward's catalog offered several different styles of hose supporters and waists.
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