Figure 1.-- Thiscabinet card shows an unidentified American boy wearing an emaculate large over the shoulders lace collar. He looks to be about 5 years old. He wears his lace collar with a cut-away velvet jacket, but without a floppy bow. The portait is undated, but looks like the 1880s to us. The studio was Bachbach & Bro Galleries in Baltimore, Maryland.

We note both boys and girls wearing lace collars. The boys we see wearing lace collars were mostly in the 1880s, 90s, and very early-1900s. We see girls wearing lace collars over a much wider time period. During the time period that boys most commonly wore lace collars, we see boys wearing them more than girls and also wearing the larger collars. A good example is a Canadian boy, Francis Allan, about 1900. We do see some girls with lace collars. A factor here is that true lace, rather than cut-out lace, is very expensive. Thus a full lace collar as opposed to a little lace trim on a large ruffled collar was both expebsive and not very practical for chuldren's clothing. We do see boys wearing lace collars as a result of the huge popularity of Little Lord Fauntleroy suits, but ruffled collars were much more prevalent. Cost has to be the major factor. We tend to see larger collars for boy than girls during this period. Overall, lace collars were more common for girls, but during the Fauntleroy Era it was the boys who more commonly sported lace collars and the larger lace collars.

Created: 7:15 PM 3/13/2019
Last updated: 7:15 PM 3/13/2019