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The Fauntleroy blouses varied graeatly. Many were hand sewn, although there were also less expensive ready made versions available. There were Fauntleroy blouses with modest collars, but medium and large sized collars appear to have been more popular--at least with the doting mothers of the era. Even the medium-sized Fumtletoy collars seem lrge to our modern sensibilities. But stanglry there were Funtleroy collars that do not do justice to the term large. There were some gollars that can only be described as gigantic and they were visited on some very small boys.
The least popular type of Fauntleroy collar was the small collars that only extended beyond the edge of the jacket at the collar. These collars might be 2 to 4 centimeters wide. Collrs that were all lace, especially expensive real lace were most likely to have small collars. Boys with small real lace collars were less likelt to wear large floppy bows than the boys wearing blouses with larger collars.
Faunteroy blouses with medium size collars were those with collars that extended about half way to the shoulders of the jacket, but did notreah the tip of the shoulder. We get agood look at the jacket. Fauntleroy blouses with these medium-size blouses were most common after the turn of the 20th century as the Funtleroy fashion was fading. These medium collars still made a considerable fashion statement. And the optionl floppy bows tendedto dtand out more than with the large collars.
It was the Fauntleroy blouse with the large collars that were most popular during the classic Fauntleroy era, from about 1885-1895. These collars were mostly ruffled with lace trim. After the turn of the 20th century, the lace trim became less common. These large collars extended toward the edge of the boys' shoulders, some even fell down over the shoulders, but yuually not to far down. . Others were more stifly starched to make them hold up and not fall down on the jacket. These large collars were commonly worn with very large floppy bows, but the bows werev optional. American boys wearing large collared Fauntleroy blouses were the most likely to wear ringlet curls. HBC estimates, based on an assessment of available photographic images, that perhaops a quarter of the boys wearing the more elaborate Fauntleroy blouses in America also wore long ringlet curls or some other elaborate hair style -- a much higher percentage than the boys wearing Fauntleroy suits in general.
We thought we had seen large Fauntleroy collars when we began working on HBC. But as we begam building our archive, we began seeing collars that large seemed truly a gross understatement. Large meanm that the collar extended to the sholders and covered up the top of the jacket as we see here (figure 1). But even so, you could still see the hacket. Some Funtleroy blouses had collars and plackets that covred up virtually the entire jacket. And when combined with decorative wrist cuffs and floppy bows, we are lucky to see any of the jacket at all -- at least from the front. Now these gigantic collars were rare, even in the Fauntleroy era, but they did exist. Mothers at the time had virtually free reign as to how they dressed boys, at least before they reached school age. And some took full advantage of the opportunity, pourung heir heart and soul int the effort.
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