Figure 1.--This tin-type portrait shows an unidenified American boy wearng alt suit done in a bold plaid pattern. Notice the rounded crown hat worn with the suit. Also notice the pants worn with the suit. They look like very wide knickerbiockers. Usually the pants seen with kilt suits are knee pants. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken n the late-1870s or earlu-80s.

Unlike Briain, in America we see see a few boys wearing pants with kilt suits. The boy on the previous page is a good example. They were not part of the suit, but were worm with the kilt suits. They look to us like mothers bought these pants independently of the actual kilt suit. This was not the case of other skirted garments like dresses and skirts, but pants were worn with tunic suits. We are also unsure about the age conventions associated with wearing knee pants with kilt suits. We do not have a lot of examples and do not know if some of the pants involved, knee pants as best we can tell, were not made to match the suit. This is why we do not consider them to be a standard suit element. The ones which we have found so far did not match. The pants we see are almost all knee pants. We do not see long pants or knickers to any extent. The voluminionous knickerbockers the boy here is wearing is an exception (figure 1).

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Created: 4:34 AM 3/14/2025
Last updated: 4:34 AM 3/14/2025