Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shws two unidentified brohers about 8-11 yeears old. The boys wear different suits. The younger brother weaes an Eton collar with a collar-buttonng Norfolk jacket. We are not suer how to dsscribe the older boy's suit. We wonder if it is a school uniform. We are not sure, but the date, we suspect is the 1890s, even thearly 1900s decae, but the dealer suggested the 1880s. Notice that it is not a studio potrait which is one reson we think a kater date is more likely. We suspect the portrait was the work of a street photogrpher taken in front of their home. Before the turn-of-the 20th cetury few people had cameras and family snapshots were very rare.

We do not yet have full information on other garments worn with knicker suits. There are two required suit garments. Westcoass/vests were optional. Sevralother gsrmentswere worn, but not part of the suits. Often the svailable imges do not show boys eearing ther headwear, in part because so much of the19th and early-20 cebtury photographic recod is studio photogrphy. We do have informstin on jackets. We see English boys wearing different styles of suit jackets with knickers, but single breasted suit jackets were very common. Our archive is still very limited, but single-breasted suits seem by far the most common, more common than in America where we see many boys wearing double-breasted jackets. We believe the popularity of single-breasted jackets was in part because that this was in part because it was the the style generally preferred for school uniforms. This meant primarily private schools, but styles at these schools was influential in setting popular styles. Norfolk jackers were another popular style. As far as we can tell, knickers were mostly suit pants. I don't think it was very common, as it was in America, to just buy a pair of knickers separate from a suit coat. We see quite a few boys wearing waistcoats (vests).

Headwear

Headwear is difficult to assess. Headwear was a necessary part of dress in the 19th and early-20th century. This was true for both children and adults. Most people when they left home put on some kind of headwear. You do not get a good feeling for this because of the nature of 19th century photography. Most 19th century photography was studio portaits. Photographic technology in the 19th century made the family snapshot impossible. Most mothers wanted the children to remove their headwear to get a better image which included all of the face and hair. Thus we see relatively few portraits with hair. Fortunately, the American photograpic record is huge. And as a result, there are substantial numbers of portraits wth headwear. Whilewe often don't see portraiys with headwear, in some instances the headwear is placed on furniture or on the ground. The case of the image here, the boys were photgraphed just outside their home so they did nt bother to put on headewear tomstep ouside. Boys wore both caps and hats. With these knicker suits we see motly caps. On the knicker suits we have found with headwear we have found Flats caps seem common. By he 1920s, the iconic peaked schooll caps had become, but by this time knicker suits were becoming less common.

Shirts/Blouses

Shirs and blouses are rather difficulot to assess because they are generally coveed up by the jackts and vests. All we usually get to see are the collars. The Eton cllar was the moat popular collar type for most of the era that Eglish boys wore knicker suits. The younger boy here wears a standard Eton collar with a modet bow (figure 1). His older broter wears the more adult looking wing collar which may be a school uniform.

Neckwear

Jackets

We see English boys wearing different styles of suit jackets with knickers, but single breasted suit jackets were very common. Our archive is still very limited, but single-breasted suits seem by far the most common, more common than in America where we see many boys wearing double-breasted jackets. We believe the popularity of single-breasted jackets was in part because that this was in part because it was the the style generally preferred for school uniforms. This meant primarily private schools, but styles at these schools was influential in setting popular styles. Norfolk jackers were another popular style. As far as we can tell, knickers were mostly suit pants. I don't think it was very common, as it was in America, to just buy a pair of knickers separate from a suit coat.

Vests

Vests werecommon but optional and not worn with collar-buttoning jackets. Vess matching the jacket were themost bcoomon, bbutb we do see vests done in cintrasting colors.

Hosiery

English boys mostly wore knickers with eiher long stockings or knee socks.

Footwear

Footwear varied over time, but noably lw-cut shoes were much more common n Briain than America which we can see in the portraihere (figure 1). High-top shoes wereworn, but they were not bstandard like America.

Created: 6:19 AM 1/11/2025br> Last updated: 6:19 AM 1/11/2025