Figure 1.--This advertisement for a Cadillac in 1955 is representative of advertisements for luxury goods. The upper class image of the boys' Eton suits helps to undeline the luxury image of the car. |
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The American Eton suit always had an image as an upper-class style. HBC believes that they were much more extensively worn by boys in affluent or upper middle class families than boys from more modest families. Inexpensive versions did appear, but were not widely available until the 1960s. These cheaper versions were often worn with regular shirts rather than Eton or Peter Pan collars. They were often worn with regular shirts rather than Peter Pan or Eton collars or were worn with bow ties. The upper class image of the Eton suit was often demonstrated by advertisements for expensive cars and other luxury products which might picture a family with boys dressed in Eton suits.
The American Eton suit always had an image as an upper-class style. In part it was the English name saske that gave it that image. The American Eton suit was of course quite differet from actual Eton suits. There were some similarities, the jackets were colarless and cut shorter than a normal boys' suit jacket. The original versions of the suit were worn with Eton collars. Such English styles helped to create an upper-class image in the American bind.
HBC believes that they were much more extensively worn by boys in affluent or upper middle-class families than boys from more modest families. Most of the images noted by HBC of boys wearing Eton suits seem to be boys from affluent families. A good example are the Tucker boys whose mother took them to a society garden party in 1937. The portrait here in 1955 is clearly an affluent, robably upper middle-clas family (figure 1). Boys from less affluent socities were less likey to wear short pants suits in general and were even less likely to wear Eton suits.
Inexpensive versions did appear, but were not widely available until the 1960s. These cheaper versions were often worn with regular shirts rather than Eton or Peter Pan collars. They were often worn with regular shirts rather than Peter Pan or Eton collars or were worn with bow ties. HBC believes that these low-cost versions did not begin appearing in discount stores until the 1960s, but this needs to be confirmed.
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Boys through the 1950s would always wear their Eton suits with peaked caps, which was another upper-class style. Less affluent boys would also wear a cap, but he would be very unlikely to wear a peaked cap.
The original Eton suit was worn with Eton collars. The Eton collar was still worn in the 1930s, but was becoming much less common in the 1940s. One of the garments it was mostly likely to be worn with in the 1940s was the small boys Eton suit. Notice how these boys wear acollar looking somewhatvlike an Eton collar as latecas 1955. The Peter Pan colar began to be worn during the 1950s. Both of the collar styles were styles much more likely to be worn by boys from affluent families.
Bos from affluent families generally wore their Eton suits with kneesocks. This was not always the case, but knee socks were quite common among boys frpm afflient families. This was especially the case for formal occasions.
Younger boys appearing with theur parents in the society pages were very likely to be pictured in Eton suits at formal occasions.
The upper class image of the Eton suit was often demonstrated by advertisements for expensive cars and other luxury products which might picture a family with boys dressed in Eton suits. This helped to stress the products luxury image. A good example is a 1938 Studebaker ad.
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