Figure 1.--Here we see a cabinet card portrait of three unidentified English children about 1-6 years of age. The two older boys wear tunic suits with ruffled collars and knee pants. They look like identical outfits, but the older boy has a front buttoning tunic while his little brother has a side or back buttoning tunic. The younger boy has matching long stockings and the older boys probably does also. The two younger children have button shoes and the older boy does also. The cabinet card is undated, but we know it was taken in the early-1900s because it says 'patronized by his majesty the king'. This means it had to be taken after January 1901 because Queen Victoria died at that time and Edward VII became king. The studio was H.A. Chapman in Swansea. This is a coastal city in Wales.

There was a renewed popularity of tunic suits at the turn-of-the 20th century. We see it in both Eurooe and America. The fashion, however, does not seem quite as popular in England as several other countries such as America and France. We have seen relatively few images of English wearing tunics at the turn-of-the 20th century. Our English archive is not as large as our American archive, but we have archived quite a number of images. We see tunic suits in which the tunic and pants match making them tunic suits. The pants seem to be mostly knee pants which you can see here (figure 1). While in France and especislly America we see a lot of bloomer knickers. The tunics suits worn by American and French boys in the early 20th Century seem much less common in England. The Englisgh tunics we have found seem shorter than what we see in America and France. English boys seem to have worn knee pants suits without the long tunics worn in France and America and were much more plain than the French suits. As in other countries there seems to be a social class factor. This is not to say that they were not worn, only that they were not as common. Most of the 20th century tunic suit images we have found date to the 1900s and 10s. One of the last tunic suits we note in England is the white suit worn by Adrian Gerald Foley in 1926.

The 1900s

There was a renewed popularity of tunic suits at the turn-of-the 20th century. We see it in both Eurooe and America. The fashion, however, does not seem quite as popular in England as several other countries such as America and France. We have seen relatively few images of English wearing tunics at the turn-of-the 20th century. Our English archive is not as large as our American archive, but we have archived quite a number of images. We see tunic suits in which the tunic and pants match making them tunic suits. The pants seem to be mostly knee pants which you can see here (figure 1). While in France and especislly America we see a lot of bloomer knickers. The tunics suits worn by American and French boys in the early 20th Century seem much less common in England. The English tunics we have found seem shorter than what we see in America and France. English boys seem to have worn knee pants suits without the long tunics worn in France and America and were much more plain than the French suits. This is not to say that they were not worn, only that they were not as common. As in other countries there seems to be a social class factor, although the boys here do not seem to come from a well-to-do family (figure 1).

The 1910s

Most of the 20th century tunic suit images we have found date to the 1900s and 10s. We have not found any dated 1910s English examples yet. We have found images we think date to the 1910s. If course our subjective dating is not as good as having a verifiable dated exanple, but we have to work with what we have. The nice aspect of internet publishing is that the rext can be easily edited and revised. Thus we are posting our preliminary assessment and will revise it if more information becomes available or if readers offer a better dating of the images. If our assessments are correct, we still see quite a number of tunic suits in the 1910s. Norfolk styling with Eton collars. was popular. Avd it does bot seemn to have been a dashion style for the affluent which it became in the 1920s. Ot seems to have been more of a middle-cl;ass style. We see school age children wearing tunics in the 1910s, perhaps younger school age childre but still school age children, wearing these tunics. The accompmanying clothing and the clothes of others in the photograph provide udeful dating clues. We think the popularity of tunic suits was declining, but our limited English archive may also be a factor. We think that the boy on the previous page is a good example, although otbappears to be an outfit fpr a pre-shpp; suit. The school-age suits were done with a little more mature accessories like a normal Eton collar.

The 1920s

We see very few English boys wearing tunic suits by the 1920s. The fashiin had clearly gone out of style. We do see some, but not very many, they appear to be mostly boys from well-to-do, fashionable families. One of the last tunic suits we note in England is the white suit worn by Adrian Gerald Foley in 1923-26. We see him wearing both bloomer knickers as a yonger boy and and short pants when he was little older. Notably th only exampls wevhave found are studio portaits and no family snapshots wjich of course are a much greatr indicator of widespread prevalence.

Created: 12:18 PM 5/1/2018
Last updated: 4:38 AM 3/1/2022