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English boy clothes -- suits garments vests waistcoats
English Boys Suits: Garments--Vests/Waistcoats
Figure 1.--Here in this cabinet portrait we see an unidentified brother and sister all done up in thir best outfits. They look to be about 7-10 yeats old. The girl wears a velvet dress with a large lace collar and matching wrist cuffs. We are not sure about the color, but it might be a light-blue. Her older brother wears a Eton collar, cut-away jacket, and matching vest. The studio was T.C. Turner & Co., 10 Barnsbury Park, North London. The portrait is undated, but we would guess the late-1880s.
English boys also wore three-piece suits. The three-piece suits came with vests. The British use the term waistcoats. (Vests meant undershirts in England. In fact this was also the case in America during the early-20th century.) We are not sure this terminology was the case in the 19th century. Vests were, however, especially common in the 19th century. Quite a large portion of the boys wearing suits wiore them with vests in the 19th century. Our English archive, however, is not large enough to make any valid estimate as to prevalence, but we would say more than half. Our information on the early-19th century is limited. We first notice jackets and vests at mid-century. Many of the mid-19th century vests were done in bright colors and patterns that contrasted with the suits. This changed (1860s). We see suits with matching jackets and pants as well as vests. A good example is an unidentified Lincoln boy. We also notice the Smith boys wearing cut-away jackets with vests in the 1860s. The vests by this time were normally made of the same material as the jacket and trousers. Vests were very common both for regular wear and school uniforms. (In the 19th century it was only private schools that had school uniforms.) After the turn-of the 20th century we see fewer boys wearing vests with suits. And they entirely disappearted at school after World War I. We are not entirely surch why this change occcurred, but suspect it was peimarily aart of the general trend toward informality that evolved in the 20th century.
Three Piece Suits
English boys also wore three-piece suits. The three-piece suits came with vests. They were very common in the 19th century, less so in the 20th century.
Terminology
The British use the term waistcoats. (Vests meant undershirts in England. In fact this was also the case in America during the early-20th century.) We are not sure this terminology was the case in the 19th century.
Chronology
Vests were especially common in the 19th century. Quite a large portion based on the photographic record. The boys wearing suits commonly wore them with vests in the 19th century. Our English 19th century archive, however, is not large enough to make any valid estimate as to prevalence, but we would say more than half. Of course the photographic record over reports the fashion trends of the affluent classes. Our information on the early-19th century is limited. We first notice jackets and vests at mid-century. Many of the mid-19th century vests were done in bright colors and patterns that contrasted with the suits. This changed (1860s). We see suits with matching jackets and pants as well as vests. A good example is an unidentified Lincoln boy. We also notice the Smith boys wearing cut-away jackets with vests in the 1860s. Vests were very common both for regular wear and school uniforms. (In the 19th century it was only private schools that had school uniforms.) After the turn-of the 20th century we see fewer boys wearing vests with suits. And they entirely disappearted at school after World War I. We are not entirely surch why this change occcurred, but suspect it was peimarily aart of the general trend toward informality that evolved in the 20th century.
Material and Color
Vests when the first appeared in the mid-19th century were commonly done to contrast with the suyiut jacket. And often the trousers did not match as well. We see vests in different material and as well as bright colrs and loud patterns. This began to change by the late-1850s and we see matching vests and jackets (1860s). This was the convention for the rest if the century. The boy's suit here is a good example, we think in the 1880s (figure 1). The vests by this time were normally made of the same material as the jacket and trousers.
As far as we can tell, vests were most worn as part of suits. We see very few examples of boys wearing their vests without the jackets. Of course our 19th century archive consists almost entirely of studio portraits in which the boys are done up formally. We have virtually no images showing how the boys dressed away from the studio. Even in the early- and mid-20th century we rarely see boys wearing vests without the suit jackets. Nor do we see vests other than those done as part of three-piece suits. We have found a few examples, but very few.
This did not change untilk after World War II. We begin to see boys wearing veses, often brightly colored vests, worn rather than suit jackets. We begin to nsee these beginning in the 1960s. These were separated purchased garments, not bpart of any nsuit and rarely worn with suit jackets. It was a more informal and less expemsive garment thana suit.
