Figure 1.--This CDV portrait shows an unientified French boy about 1870. He looksto be about 8 years old. The Pointed corners of the mount combined with the suit style suggest the portrait was taken in about 1870. This is the date sugested by the French dealer. The boy wears belted collar buttoning jacket, narrowcollar, a crosstie, and very long wide-cut knee pants. Long stockings and high-top button shoes complete the outfit. The studio is G. Dardel in Mulhouse. .

The youngest voys nreeched might wear fancy suits. We see two styles of suit jackets for younger schoo age boys in the 1870s. Cit away and collar-buttoning jackets were both popular. Both wee 1860s styles that continued to be worn in the 1870s. The boy here waes a collar-buttoning jacket (figure 1). Notice the belt. These were mostly short jackets, but we also notice longer cuts like the military style jcket the boy on the previous page is wearing in the early-1870s. Collar buttoning jackets seemed to have declined in the 70s and in addition to the cut-away jackets, we see more boys wearing lapel sack suits. Long pants suits for older boys were still common, but we note-shortened-length suits increasing in popularity, especially among well-to-do fashionable families. We see boys in America, Britain, and we think Germany (we are still looking into this) wearing suits to primary schools in the 1870s. And we begin to see striped long stockings replacing the white long stockings that were so common in the 60s. This was less true in France where children began wearing smocks. This was mandated by the new French Republic which took power in the country as a result of the fall of the monrarchy as a result of the Franco-Prussian War. One impact was clearly seen in French schools. We see boys wearing military-looking suits in the 1870s. With all the talk of German militarization, it was rench boys that wore military uniforms to school. We believe that this was in part a reaction to the disatrous Franco-Prussian War and the loss of Alsace-Loraine. The disaster of the War shocked France to the core. And there were many reperscussions, not the least in fashion. The idea of the new French Republic was the perceived need to restore discipline among the youth. These seem to be mostly school uniforms for secondary schools. The unidentfied boy on the previous page is a good example.

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Created: 4:20 AM 10/30/2017
Last updated: 4:20 AM 10/30/2017