Figure 1.--This early German carte de visite (CDV) shows two unidentified sibkings, certainly brothers. The younger boy wears a plain low-cut dark dress with decorative white pantalettes. His older brother wars a cut-away jacket suit with decorative emroidery. It is a long pants suit. The CDV is undated but the sharp corners and whte borders show it dates to the 1860s. The boys look to be about 3-6 years old. Note the shirt bhair. Photographer/studio: F. Brandt, Flensburg.

Avaialble information shows that German boys were wearing dresses in the mid-19th century. We do not, however, have sufficent images to assess whether this widely practiced custom in Europe differed in Germany to any appreciable extent. With the invention of photography (1839) much more information becomes available on fashion, but not immediately in Germany. Germany was not a leader in photography at this early stage, despite its subsequent involvement. We do not yet have any German examples of early photographic types like Dags and Ambros among others. Some undoubably exist, but they are less common than in Britain and France and especially America. We begin to see more photographic images with the popularity of CDVs (1860s). We note an early CDV, certainly from the 1860s, with two Flensburg siblings. The boy wears a very simple black dress (fugure 1). Note the short hair.

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Created: 5:35 AM 11/11/2019
Last updated: 5:35 AM 11/11/2019