Little Lord Fauntleroy Suits: Age 10 Year--Usage

Figure 1.-- Most available Fauntleroy images were formal studio nportrait. We are less sure just when and where the boys involved wore these suits other than for formal portraits. This unidetified boy wears a standard double-breasted jacket, but with a very fanct Fauntelroy blouse. He also wear what looks to be silk long stockings with ptent-leather pumps. This cabinet card portrait was taken at the Freeman studio in Somerville, Massachsettes. It is undated, but the mount suggests it was taken in the early-1900s. Curiously we note a portrait by the sane studio of this same boy in a plainer outfit a year or so before this portrait was taken, at least we think he was younger. Perhaps readers will have some thoughts here. Perhaps this is a brother, but we would have thought brothers would have been dressed more similarly.

We do note portraits of boys who look to be 10 years old, so we know some boys wore them. But because the family snapshot did not appear in large numbers until 1900, and at first were almost etirely outdoors images, we do not know where and when the boys wore them. Just where they wore them is an interesting question. We do not see 10-year olds wearing Fayntleroy suits to school. We know this because the schoolportrait had become fairly common by the time of the Fauntleroy craze. We do not see them at schoolt, at least with older boys. Some younger boys might come to schgool with some Fauntleroy elements. HBC has a fairly extensive school section: 1880s, 1890s, 1900s. There were some possible reasons for this. Wealthy boys might not attend school and were insread tutored at home. And at age 10 it would have been mostly boys from weakthy bfamilies wearing Fauntleroy suits. Tutoring children at home, however, was becoming less common by the 1890s. Other boys might have attended school in plainer clothes and just worn their Fauntleroy suits for special occassions. Fauntleroy suits seem to have been worn for church, parties, or other special occassions. Here the photigraphic record is less available. Only when when the family snapshot becomes more prounounced by the 1910s that we begin to get large numbers of images of events like church,paries and weddings. And byv this time the Fauntleroy ceaze had largely disappeared,

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Created: 6:29 AM 6/6/2012
Last updated: 6:29 AM 6/6/2012