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A bodice is the portion of the dress above the waist. The term bodice also was formerly used to mean a stiffened garment with stays like a corset (16th century). We also notice the term being used for a woman cross-laceing sleeveless jacket-like garment. It was a kind of peasant garment. While the principal use of the term was the upper portion of the dress, the term bodice had a specific usage in children clothing. One problem associated with younger children is how to support skirts and pants because their waists are so slender. Both boys and girls might be dressed in these garments during the 19th Century. Victorian children might wear stays, corsets, or stiff child's waist or bodices. The bodice, however, was notv a posture control device. A bodice is the portion of the dress above the waist. It was the upper portion of other garments as well, including several garments worn by children. of the dress and worn as outer clothes. There were, however, other garments made with bodices. This includes both skirted garments and pants. The skirted garments incude skirts, kilt suit skirts, and Highland kilts. There were also pants made with bodices, especially bloomer knickers. On these grments the top of the bodice was an undergarment. The child would commonly wear a blouse ot tunic over it so it could not be seen.
A bodice is the portion of the dress above the waist. The term bodice also was formerly used to mean a stiffened garment with stays like a corset (16th century). We also notice the term being used for a woman cross-laceing sleeveless jacket-like garment. It was a kind of peasant garment. While the principal use of the term was the upper portion of the dress, the term bodice had a specific usage in children clothing. One problem associated with younger children is how to support skirts and pants because their waists are so slender. Both boys and girls might be dressed in these garments during the 19th Century. The Brother of Oscar Wilde says, for example, writes that both his he and his brother wore corsets until they were 16 years old. We are not entirely sure, however, just what that meant. We note that there were corset waists advertized for children They seem to be, howver, actually underwaists to hold up garments like skirts, kilts, pants, and stockings more than posture or figure control devices. That said, we notice that some manufacturers of underwaists or similar garments like skeleton waists did sometimes suggest that they were beneficial for posture. Underwaists were essentially bodices, but bodies that were not attached to the clothing they supported.
Victorian children might wear stays, corsets, or stiff child's waist or bodices. Both boys and girls might wear them. By the 1830s, corsets for young children had gone out of style, though there were a few
die-hards who insisted on keeping children in stays from infancy, so they would develop straight backs. Most physicians, however, and magazine consultants,argued against this as being too confining, and in fact inhibiting of a strong body. Free exercise of the little muscles was better. For this reason, they advised against swaddling infants, as had long been the custom. While corsets for boys went out of style, this was not the case for girls. Mothers when their girls reached the age of 11 made them start wearing corsets . Every year the waist would become smaller by about an inch, so that by the time they
were 16 their waist would only be 16 to 18 inches. If a girl didn't wear her corset, her mother would sometimes make her wear one at night with her hands tied behind her back to keep her from undoing it. As one modern fashion analyst wrote, "And you thought your Mom was tough." Luckily boys were spared this fashion.
A bodice is the portion of the dress above the waist. It was the upper portion of other garments as well, including several garments worn by children. of the dress and worn as outer clothes. There were, however, other garments made with bodices. This includes both skirted garments and pants. The skirted garments incude skirts, kilt suit skirts, and Highland kilts. There were also pants made with bodices, especially bloomer knickers. On these grments the top of the bodice was an undergarment. The child would commonly wear a blouse ot tunic over it so it could not be seen. The bodice was actually a two-piece garment, but the two were sewn together. The purpose in all instances was to hold up the bottom garment. Younger boys tend to be slender without pronounced hips. This makes it difficult for these boys to wear kilts. The solution was to sew on a bodice to the kilt to hold it up. This is the same reason that younger boys wear suspender shorts to hold them up.
We notice younger boys wearing skirts. Some skirts were done in tartan or plaid material and called kilts, but they really just plain skirts. We do not know for a fact that that there were bodice skirts, but it is very likely that there were. We know some plaid skirts worn with Fauntleroy jackets. They were probably called kilts, but as far as we can tell were styled like skirts. We believ that virtually all of these Fauntleroy skirts were done as bodice skirts.
Kilt suits were very popular outfits for younger boys during the late 19th century. They were widely worn in Britain and America. We believe that the kilt-skirts worn with these garments were mostly
bodice kilts. There was a bodice top sewn on to the kilt bottom. These bodice kilts were more like
a complete dress, however, rather than just a skirt--only the bodice top was really an under garment.
The bodice kilt was particularly popular in the 19th Century and early 20th century for the kilts worn with kilt suits. We note a description of a 1890s bodice kilt advertisement. Boys would wear a blouse in a variety of styles over the bodice. The bodice had buttons which were fastened at the back. This simplified dressing the small boy and most importantly, the bodice held the skirt or kilt in place. The bodice kilt was common for boys aged between about 4 and 7 years. Boys wearing a bodice kilt had to wear blouses because shirttails could not be tucked into the kilt.
The Highland kilt is a basically a tartan skirt with specialized styling covering the lower half of the body. Many of the kilts shown here worn by younger boys were bodice kilts, at least in the 19th and early-20th century. Younger boys wearing Highland kilts might wear bodice kilts rather than a regular kilt. The greatest advantage was that very young boys do not have a sharply enough defined waist to hold up a proper buckle kilt, in Scottish they say nae bum).We know such bodice kilts were made. The The bodice kilt also had the advantage that it could also be let out in length (indeed most came with a bit that you could let down) and because it fastened
loosely at the front it was easy to accommodate changes in growth. Because any kind of kilts were (and still are) expensive, the more years wear that could be got out of a garment the better. Also kilts don't really wear out no matter what hard wear the boy gives it. So the only reason for replacement is only
size. For this reason, boys kilts were often passed around families so that many could wear the same kilt. We do not know how common they were. At one time we think that most of the kilts worn by younger boys were mostly bodice kilts--especially proper kilts made by a reputable kilt maker. These were generally considered more practical as attaching the kilt to a bodice mean that suspenders or other way of holding the kilt were not necessary. Boys at many Scottish schools, mistly private schools, wear kilts on formal occassions. Currently I don't think the boys even at the prep level wear bodice kilts, but am unsure if this always was the case. Scottish Cubs and Scouts often wear kilts on dress occasions. Currently it is primarily the Scottish scouts who wear kilts and the Cubs wear either short or long grey trousers. Cubs used to wear kilts. We think that some Scottish Cubs wearing kilts may have worn boddice kilts. Younger boys wearing kilts for formal weddings may have worn boddice kilts. I think they may be less common than they once ewere, but have few details at this time.
Boys at the turn of the 20th century commonly wore tunic suits. This was a particularly popular garment for younger boys. Often they were worn with bloomer knickers. Many of these bloomer knickers seem to have been done with bodices. We know some were, but am not yet positive just how common this was. Bloomer knickers were usually worn with a tunic top, but some boys may have worn them with blouses.
