Figure 1.--This Danish child is unidentified and the image is undated. We do know that it was taken at a studio in Kjobenhavn so we know he was Danish. We believe he is a boy, basically because of his looks, but we have no wayof beingg sure. He wears a skirt with a blouse or sweater and a lace collar. The skirt is a kind of plaid design, perhaps to make it look like a kilt. The boy looks to be about 6 years old. Click on the image for more details.

Younger Danish boys as in the rest of Europe wore a variety of skirted outfits. We have noted boys wearing both dresses and skirts. This appears to have been the case in both wealthy and modest income families. Breeching often occurered at about 5 years of age. We do not know of any destinctive dress styles worn by Danish boys, but our information is very limited. We do not know if they wore kilts, but we have noted plaid-like skirts. Smocks were not very common, but were worn--mostly by boys from affluent families.

Dresses

Danish boys like boys in other European countries wore dresses as smaller boys. This appears to have been the case in both wealthy and modest income families. Breeching often occurered at about 5 years of age. This varied, however, from family to family. It is likely that boys from poorer families may have been breeched earlier than boys from wealthy families. In also varied according to the vageries of individual mothers--who were given considerable disgression in thecdressing of younger boys. Some mothers believed in delaying breeching well past 5 years of age. I do not yet have details on the styles of dresses worn by boys before breeching. Dresses in the early part of the century probably followed the European pattern of being identical to those worn by girls. Special boys dresses, usually plainer, may have been available by the 1890s. One Danish reader reports that "My family lived "out on the country." He says that "It looks like baby-boys during the early 1920s still were dressed in dresses. They were however, breeched very early--when they could walk I suppose."

Skirts

We note one undated image which looks to be from the 1880s of a boy wearing a skirt with a blouse or sweater with a lace collar. The skirt is a kind of plaid design, perhaps to make it look like a kilt. We wondered if having a Danish Princess as the English Princess of Wales may have stimulated some interest in British styles. We do not know how popular such skirts were for boys in Denmark.

Tunics

Tunics were widely worn by Euroopean boys in the 19th century. We have very little information about Danish tunics. We believe that the tunic was a fairly common garment for Danish boys in the 19th century, but because of our limited archive cannot yet demostrate that. We have seen tunics in Scandinavia in the early-19th century and believe this was the case in Denmark. The onle example we have found cones from the 1880s, a pleated tunic suit with knee pants. Hopefully we will be able to say more as our Danish archive expands. Without the studio information, we could not have identified the outfit as Danish. It looks very similar to other tunics we have found in northern Europe and America.

Kilts

We do not see Danish boys wearing Highland kilts. There may be a few examples as the Royal Family because of the close association with the British royal family. Our Danish archive is limited, largely because Denmark is such a small country. Thus the absence of such images is not yet a valid indicator. But as far as we can tell, kilts were not worn. Nor do we see kilt suits. Again this may reflect our small archive, but we have not yet found an example. We suspect that unlike the Highland kilts a few boys may jave worn kilt suits. As our archive expands we may find examples, but we have noy yet found an example. We suspect that the boy's skirt here was an effort by a Danish mother to make it kook like a kilt (figure 1).

Smocks

Photographs of Prince Frederick IX show him playing croquet in a white dress and smock in 1904. This is an interesting image because European royalty was not often photographed in smocks. HBC is not sure whether this was because princes did not commonly wear smocks or because they were considered to informal a garment in which to be photographed. HBC is unsure to what extent other Dutch boys from more humble circumstances wore smocks. Danish boys during the 1920s wore smocks. We note boys from the prosperous Bohr family wearing smocks. We are not sure if they were for home or school.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[About Us]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Girls] [Theatricals] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: August 11, 2002
Last updated: 7:30 PM 1/5/2019