English Little Lord Fauntleroy Suits: Chronology--The 1870s

Figure 1.--This CDV portrait unidentified English boy wears a fancy velvet suit. It has a high-set lapel jacket with faux double-breasted buttons and elavorate embroidery. Enbroidery and stripes are also found on the knee matching pants. this was a butto-on garment. A mastrching waistband hides the buttins, a common device in the 1860s and 70s. He wears his suit with a white shirt that had a small collar. He has long, but uncurled hair. Areader suggests he was about 6-7 years old. The photographer was Mrs. Williamd in Wolverhampton.

As far as we can tell, the chronological trends of the Fauntleroy suit were very similar to those in the United States, although the fashion was never as popular in America. We note younger boys wearing fancy velvet suits in the 1870s. Usually they were suits similar to other outfits only done in velvet wiuth fancy embroidery and other trim like frogging, piping, amd striping but without the Fauntleroy trim that became so popular in the 1880s. Theolverhapton boy here is a good ecample (figure 1). This seems to have been a fashion influence from France. Most of the fancy velvet suits were not the cassic cut-away jacket suits that became so identified with Fauntleroy styling. We see suits done in wide range of styles. Many of these fancy suits were not ready-made outfits. Actually some of the suits were fancier than the classic Fauntleroy cut-away jackets which were actually quite plain. What we do not see are the fussy, frilly trim and blouses that were worn with them. Collars in the 1870s in particular tended to be restrained in both size and working. We are not sure about the age range yet because we have so few images. The boy here looks to be about 6-7 years ofage (figure 1).

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Created: 4:04 AM 11/3/2014
Last updated: 6:25 PM 11/3/2014