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HBC is building a chronology describing the development of boys' clothing styles. Our focus is on the modern era. Yet it is not possibe to fully understand the modern era without an assessment of earlier periods. Thus we have decided to provide some basic background history on human civilization from the dawn of man. We will not persue these early epocs in the same detail as the modern era, but we believe that it is seential to look at ancient civilizations to begin our assessment of clothing and fashion. The medueval era is particularly important in understanding the evolution of modern garments and fashions. We have concentrated on Western fashion, but we will also look at the advancement of civilizatioin in other areas as well. We do this in part because developments in the East have had a major impact and not always fully understood impact on the West. Our knowledge of non-European fashions and clothing is limited, but we will add this information as well as it becomes available. Our focus is on clothing and fashion, but of course some basic understanding of the overall society is needed to understand clothing trends which are strongly influenced by the overall technological level of a civilization. And as a coralary the fashions of a civilization or era offer insights into that period that are not always availavle or reflected in the written record.
Almost certainly the first clothes were animal skins. More contentious is when people started wearing animal furs, presumably initially for warmth. This was a major development because until man could make clothing, he could not survive in the colder climate found north of Africa in Europe and Asia. There is little evidence that anthropolgists have been able to develop about clothing worn in prehistory, primarily because clothing deteriorates over time. Some fascinating finds in the Middle Eastern deserts or the Ice man in the Alps provide fascinating information about the clothing of early man, but not about when man began wearing clothes. Anthropolgists believe that needles and other artifacts suggest that people were sewing clothes at least 25,000 years ago and possibly as much as 40,000 years ago. Some anthropolgists speculate that man first using animal skins about 100,000 years ago, but these are only rough estimates with no real evidence to support them. Also unknown us precisely when people first took the step from just draping animal skins on them to actually fashioning crude garments.
An associated aspect of the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution was the cultivation of fiberous plants and the domestication of animals with wool and lether than could be used for clothing. Weaving was a major technological advance. Initially txtiles were very simple and men simply wrapped them around the body. Over time humans developed more form fitting garments. bearing animalss and the development of the technology to produce
We know a great deal about some ancient civilizations and virtually nothing about others. Until Greece and Rome, our knowledge of ancient clothing is based largely on the level and survival of artistic depictions. As clothing is made out of textiles that are perhisble, there are relatively few surviving garments. Some exist, but artistic depictions are the primary source of information. With Greece and Rome we have surviving texts that provide information on clothing and fashion.
Our information on medieval clothes is still limited. It is not a topic that we have yet addressed in detail. HBC focuses primarily on the modern era beginning with the 16th century. The medieval period covers a period of about 1,000 years, half of the time since the birth of Christ. One might expect that as a result there were great changes in clothing and fashion over this period.
Surprisingly there was relatively little change in fashion, especially during the early medieval era. The pace of change quickened in the late-medieval era. We have not yet developed information on many specific garments. One destinctive medieval garment was stockings. They were called "haut de chausse" in France, a country which was very influential in fashion during the medieval era. There is a page on medieval stocking supporters. Assessing children's clothing is somewhat of a misnomer as the comcept of childhood as we know it today did not esist at the time. Very young boys wore dresses. Once breeched, however, boys were clothed much like their parents. There was no specially designed children's clothing. Another important factor is that clothing was determined by social class. The peasantry for centuries wore essentially the same clothing. Fashion was a phenomenon of the upper classes. At this time the only work we have done on medieval fashion has been that of page boys. Here page boys can be considered as basically similar to aristocratic boys in general.
We cover the Middle East in ancient times in the aincncient civilization pages. With the Islamic conquest, clothing an fashion were significantly affected by Islamic dress codes. Also very important is Ottoman fashions in that the Ottoman Empire controlled much of the Middke East for several centuries.
The chronology pages explore the relationship between children's and adults' fashions as well as broader developing social trends. The focus of the chronology pages is the era beginning with late 18th Century when boys' suits began to depart from the tradition of clothing children as miniature adults. The chronology pages then chronicle the development of specialized children's clothes, describing the popular styles in each decade.
The history of boys' fashions and changes over time, like other types of fashions, are intermingled with many other developments in publishing, photography, cloth and clothing manufacturing, war and social upheaval, book and magazine publishing, and other developments. HBC though it might be useful to develop a time line to sketch out the chronology of these events over a long time period.
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