Figure 1.--These Canadian children had their portraits taken at the Lalonde studio in Montreal. That may mean that they are French Canadian but we are not sure. The portrait was probably taken about 1905. The boy here wears a small open-front jacket and knee pants. A reader writes, "If I had to guess, I would say the boy was 5 or 6 years old. Also it is rare to see the white flat top sailor cap with the Fauntleroy suit. I wonder if he wore it because the sister was all in white."

The Fauntleoy suit consisted promarily of two garments, a jacket and trousers, usually knee pants. Younger bopys might wear kilt suits. The classic Fauntleroy jacket was a cut-away jacket. The also see open front jackets. Vests were not worn with Fauntleroy suits. Although not part of the suit itself, an important element of the Fauntleroy suit was a fancy blouse. We note the same styles and trim such as lace collars and floppy bows that we see in America. We see the same small, cut-away velvet jacket and knee pants that form the classic American Fauntleroy suit. We mostly see Canadian boys wearing these jackets with knee pants as was common in America. We note many English boys wearing bloomer knickers rather than knee pants as part of Fauntleroy suits. This seems less common in Canada. The cut-away jackets were popular for Fauntleoy suits because they displued the fancy blouses commonly worn with Fauntleroy suits. There were other styles of Fauntlerou suits, but we do not yet have enough images to know how common they were in Canada.

Created: 12:11 AM 8/7/2007
Last updated: 7:02 AM 8/7/2007