Figure 1.--This little Austrian boy looks very grown up in hiscthree-piece suyit. Notice that the jacket dies noit matchg the vest and pants. The CDV portrait is undated, but was probably taken in the 1870s. The studio was Hermanm Melkler in Vienna. He looks to be about 7-8 years old. If we did not not where the portrait was taken, we might have guessed the boy was English.

We do not yet have a great deal of information on Austrian suits, largely because our Austrian archive is fairly limited. We note boys wearing skeleton suits in the early-19th century. This was a common style throughout Western Europe. As far as we can tell the types of suits worn in Austria and chromolgical trends is fairly similar to Germany, at least by the time photographic images beconme available in the mid-19th century. At mid-centuiry, jackets and pants often did not match, byt by the 1860s suits we begin to see matching suits, althouh this did not become lsrgely universal until the 1870s. We note the same juvenile styles. Fauntleroy suts were not very common, but sailor suits were. Sailor suits became especially popular in Austria. We are not sure hu because Austria-Hungary was not a mjor naval power. Perhaps it was the influence of the monarchy. We see the same styles like collar-buttoning, single and double breasted, Norfolk and Eton jackets. And we notice the same type of pants (including short, knee, knicker, and long pants) worn with suits. The chronological trends concerning these styles as well as the wearing of suits also seem similar. The major destinctive Austrian trend seems to be the use of tracht (folk) styles for suits as well as more casual styles. And in the post-War II period we note suits becoming less common for boys, atrend we note throughout Europe.

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Created: 4:10 AM 6/7/2012
Last updated: 4:10 AM 6/7/2012