Figure 1.--This unidentified boy looks to be about 4 years old. He wears a Fauntleroy classic kilt suit with a cut-away jacket, fauntleroy blouse and pleated kilt-skirt. He has ringlet curls to go with his outfit. His fashion concious mother has styled his hair unusually, emphasizing the front bangs and placing the rinlets way to the back. The cabinet card is undated, but we would guess was taken about 1890. The floppy bow is unsually small. The studio is Stauffer in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The dealer reports the cabinet card came from a theatrical album. Perhaps the boy was a child of actors. Asbury Park is on the Jersey Shore across from NewYork City and thus thetricl people could live there and easily reach the New York City theaters.

We see boys with kilt suits wearing a wide range of hair styles. Age was a factor in the choice of hair styling. As wih Fauntleroy suits, most boys wearing kilt suits had short hair. This could be done in different ways depending on the boy's hair and mothers fashion proclivities. Some mothers liked to do bangs. Given the chronological period that kilt suits were popular (late-19th century) and the age of the boys wearing kilt suits (mostly pre-school boys) one of the many hair styles was ringlet curls. Along with Fauntleroy suits which appeared after kilt suiys had become popular, the kilt suit waa one of the more common outfits for boys whose hair was done in ringlets. We see this through about age 6 years when most boys began school. By this age we see far fewer boys wearing both kilt suits and with ringlets. There continue to be a few with kilt suits and/or ringlets, but the prevlence is significantly reduced. The most common age for kilt suits and ringlets is about 3 to 5 years of age. The younger age is because really young boys may not have enough hair for ringlets. The older age is because boys as they approched school age, if not before, were commonly breeched and had their curls cut.

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Created: 10:00 AM 2/16/2011
Last updated: 3:18 AM 12/3/2015