Figure 1.--Here we see in a colorized image who look to be mostly younger teenagers. The photograph is undated, but looks to be feom the early-20th century. Note the velvet trim on some of the coats. This was meant to ne a sign of quality. And a social class facort was involved. You can look at the fine home behind the boys to see that thy came from well-off families.

We notice coats and jackets wih velvet trim. This was generally but not exclisively on the collar.This includes both overcoats nd suit jckets as wll as a varity of oyther garments. Almost always it was black velvet. It was vommonmly used as trim on the lapels of better coats for small children. This did not originate as a child's fashion. In fact men's Chesterton jackets still are made with the velvet-trim collars. The fashion dates back to the French Revolution (1789-99) when gentlemen in other countries began adopting the black velvet collars to show sympathy with the executed bourgeoise. It soon became an upper-class fashion which is still seen today. Boys in the early 20th fashion might wear coats with the black velvet trim. This was also an esentially upper-class fashion and was generally only used on expensive coats for both younger boys and girls. We note other garments with velvet trim. An exanple is a Pennsylvania boy wearing a kilt suit. The jacket has velet trim on both the lapels and the sleeve wrist cuffs. We see this in America and England into the 1960s. A good example is an unidentified American boy in the 1910s. There is a definite social class factor here. We are less sure about other countries, including contries with substantial photogrphic recorda. We have not yet, foe exmple, found examples in Germany, but that does not mean of course that they did not exist.

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Created: 9:10 PM 12/5/2021
Last updated: 9:10 PM 12/5/2021