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Charles R. Hall Sr. was photographed in Lewiston, Maine wearing long ringlets curls and a kiltsuit with some sailor stylistic elements. The portrait is undated, but it looks
like the early 1880s to HBC. He looks to be about 5-6 years old.
We have very little information about Charles, other than his name and the fact that he was phitographed in Lewiston, Maine. The hair style and outfit suggest to HBC that he came from a family of comfortable circumstance. The use of the Sr. in his name of course means that he would have a son also named Charles R.
Charles' portrait is undated. We believe that certain elements of his outfit and hair suggests the 1880s, although there is no way to positively identigy the date.. Ringlet curls for boys wre more common in the 1880s tjhan the 70s. The kiltsuit has some sailor styling. More traditional sailor styling was common in the 1890s. The relatively small size of the bow suggests the early rather than the later 1880s to HBC. We are not sure how to date the cap.
Charles' portrait was taken at the "Hudson Bay Art Rooms" in Lewiston, Maine. Note that part of the background is a painted screen and part a drapery. A strategically placed haevy chair helps Charles maintain a steady pose for a long exposure. Note the ottoman with a very large tassle. I'm not sure why that was placed there, perhaps to give a homey look. I also do not know why some carpet is rather haphazzardly rolled up behind Charles. It seems rather disorderly for a formal portrait.
Charles wears perfectly done, long ringlet curls. The curls must extend down to the
middle of his back. These are longer than the curls that most boys wore. Also notice the large rolled curl on the top of the hrad. In this regard it is similar to the choupette hair style worn by French boys in the 1940s and ealy 30s. The effort required to maintain such curls is one we reason that we believe that Charles came from comfortable circumstances. One question HBC is unsure of as regards ringlet curls is how the boys hair was normally done. We assume that special care was taken to do his curls perfectly for the portrait, but we wonder how is hear was done normally. Was there no difference or were there ways of doing the hair that did not require nightly curlings.
While the most destinctive aspect of Charles' portrait is his long curls, there are also several interesting elements of his kiltsuit outfit.
One of the interesting elements in this portrait is the cap the boy holds. Clearly his mothher wanted it in the portrait, Headgear was much more widely worn an important to the outfits worn by both children and adults than is the case today. While mother wanted his cap in the portrait, she definitely did not want him to wear it as it would have hidden his curls, which she had no doubt labored to create in such a perfect state. I am not sure what this cap was called. We do, however, note the large pom. It looks like a warm hat, presumably the sides could be lowered to cover the ears in the cold Maine winters.
The collar of the Charle's blouse is obscure by his bow. It does look, however, to be a "V" cut sailor collar with a back flap. The striping on the kilt skirt and sleeve cuffs would be in keeping with the sailor styling.
Charles's carefully tied plka-dot bow appears is not one of the huge bows that we have seen in the 1889s and 90s, but it does cover most of the collar. I am not sure what color it is, but it looks like it might be different than that of the suit.
Charles wears a kilt suit. Notice how the blouse jacket matches the kilt suit in color, material and styling. One inciongrity is the buttoning. Notice the single row of buttons ion the blouuse, but double row on the kilt skirt. Often the buttoning on the outfits matched. It looks like Charles had worn this suit for some time and had rather grown out of it. Note how how far up his arms the sleeve goes. For some reason, there are two stripes on the blouse and three on the kilt skirt. I am not sure about the pants. A HBC reader comments, "One point you might have overlooked is the skirt worn with the outfit. When I looked at your blowup of the cap I noticed that the skirt is not a normal style, i.e., buttoning at the waist, but wraps around and buttons all the way down the front. The buttons on the front and left side are functional as well as decorative. Except for the buttons it looks similar to a girls wrap around kilt." HBC is unsure about the buttoning. We note in fact that one button is missing in the left row. We also note that one button in each row is placed on the striping detail work. HBC is not, however, convinced that the buttons were functional.
Most boys wore long-dark (presumably black) stockings with kilts suits. Assessing the type of pants-like garment is difficult becaise in most images only the
stockings show. It is often unclear what kind of pants-like garment they wore with these outfits. Quite a number of boys wore pantalettes with these suits.
Commonly they were lace trimmed pantalettes that came just to hem of kilt-skirt. Some of the plainer pantalettes worn in the 1820s-40s seem less common by the 1860s and are not commonly seen with kilrsuits. Some boys may have worn petticoats rather than pantalettes. It is not always easy to destinguish the two in old photographs. We believe that petticoats were less common, but we can not yet substantiate this. We do not note boys commonly wearing kneepants or the bloomer knickers that were worn with tunics by the 1890s. We do note boys wearing what look to be pantalettes or even short pants, made in the same material of the kilt
skirt. Pantalettes were normally white. Here we seem to have pantalletes that have evolved into a kind of kneepants. This is fairly unusual. I have seen few boys in kilt suitswearing these pants-like garments.
Charles wears heavy long stockings with his kiltsuit. They look to be black.
A French reader writes, "A very interresting pages on this boy and about his clothes. I must say that I am fasscinated by these old portraits and can not help but wonf\nder about the clothing questions HBC poses, but about what happened to these children as adults. Charles was a beautifull little boy with clear eyes; perhaps sky blue. His choupette is charming. His shoes do not look like they were easy to put on, especially for a boy his age. We do not know how he kept his long stockings up. Pehaps the Hall family still exists in Lewiston. What was his life? What is sure is that Charles is no longer gere anymore, but at least we have this marvelous portarit, a little piece of history for ever frozen in time."
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