Figure 1.--This unidentified family was done up by mother in all white except for sailor detailing anbbows/scarves. We see boys in sailor outfit and girls in white dresses. The younger boy who does not seem very impressed with the photographer is wearing a white sailor tunic with matching white knee pants. The image is undated. We would guess it was taken about 1900, but we are unsure. The children look to be about 2-13 years old.

English boys wore tunics with various kinds of pants. It is not always clear what boys were wearing with their tunics, because if the length od the tunic and pants. Tunics were such a common garment, hiwever, that there are lots of examples showing the various kinds of pants worn with tunics. Some tunics were worn well below the knees. The photographic record shows boys wearing pantalettes, long pants, bloomer knickers, and knee pants being worn with tunics. We are just beginning to develop information on the relative populatity and time line of these different types of pants. Very little information is available before the invention of photography and then only in the 1860s when large numbers of images become available. But beginning with the 60s, we have consuderable informstion. Younger boys wore the tunics with pantalettes. We see mostly white pantalettes. They were both plain and fancy pantalettes. A good example is the boy in a painting of an idealized Victorian family by Rebecca Solomon showing him wearing a maroon velvet tunic with lacy pantalettes in the early-1850s. We begin to see bloomer knickers after mid-century. we also see straight-leg knee pants made out of the same material as the tunic rather than the lighter pantalette fabric. Our English archive is more limited than our American archive. Thus we are just beginnung to address this topic.

Pantalettes

Younger boys wore the tunics with pantalettes. We see mostly white pantalettes. They were both plain and fancy pantalettes. A good example is the boy in a painting of an idealized Victorian family by Rebecca Solomon showing him wearing a maroon velvet tunic with lacy pantalettes in the early-1850s.

Bloomer Knickers

We begin to see bloomer knickers at the mid-19th century.

Knee Pants

We also see straight-leg knee pants made out of the same material as the tunic rather than the lighter pantalette fabric. We notice boys wearing knee pants with tunics in the 1860s. This seems a very populr choice in England. We are not sure about the 1850s, but with the far greater number of CDV inmages, we see many examples in the 1860s. We note one boy with stripe detailing on the knee pants matching those on his tunic. This us something we do not see all that much. Here we see the children all done in white around the turn-of-the 20h century (figure 1). The two boys look to be about 5-7 years old and wear sailor outfits. The older boy has a sailor blouse. The younger boy wears a sailor tunic with matchihg white knee pants.

Long Pants

We see English boys wearing lomg pants tunic suit in the 1850s. We believe thet were worn earlier in the century, but before, but there very limited phoyogrphic evidence. We have not found boys wearing long pnts with tunics in the late-19th century.

Created: 10:20 AM 3/12/2016
Last updated: 8:16 AM 11/29/2018