Figure 1.--This CDV portrait shows a boy waring a heavily decorated suit. We see piping on both the jacket and pants. We are not sure how to describe the knee pants suit. Note the arrow in the black long stockings. The jacket has some features of a sailor suit such as a V-fronyt, but there is no back flap. And it is worn with an Eton collar. Mote the low-cut shoes. Anerican boys wouod have worn high-top shoes. Notice the whip anf gredatg horse pull toy. The studio was Hills & Saunders in York Town--a part of Camberley, Surrey (adjoining Sandhurst). The photographer was a well-recognized studio, patronized by the Queen.

Men and boys suits could be quite decorative unfil the 19th century. This changed in the 19th century beginning with skeketon suits. For most of the 19th and subsequent centuries, suits were basically plain, albeit there loud patterns were sometimes used. Plain fabrics were more common. There were a range of decorations used on boys' suits. The most commom were embroidery, frogging. piping, and stripes. The use of these decorative elements seem most common for a fairly narrow time period, primarily in the 1860s-80s. The decortions seem especially popular during the 1870s. We note the Gibson boys with heavily enbroidered suits (1871). This is when we find most of the heavily decorated suits. This is just our initial assessment and it is based on estimated dates because we have only a limited number of dated images. We have just begun to work on this issue.

Created: 12:29 AM 4/9/2021
Last updated: 4:20 AM 1/16/2022