*** American boys' shirts elements








American Boys' Garments: Shirts and Shirt-like Garments--Elements

floppy bows Funtleroy ruffled collars
Figure 1.--The collar is commonly the most important element of shirt-like garments. This of course was particularly important with the Fauntleroy blouse. This touching cabinet card show two brothers in wearing frilly Fauntleroy blouses with ruffled collars and floppy bows. The photographer wass Prescher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The portrait is undated, but the collasrs and mount styles look like he turn-of-the 20th century.

There are several different elements to shirts and associated shirt-like garments. The two most important are probably the collar and sleeves. the collar is a strip around the neck. Shirts are normally done with turndown collars, meaning neck strip folded down away from the neck. There are many different collar styles. The often commonly fominated the shirt and the name of the shirt common devolves from the collar. Collars tofay are usually done with point tips at the front. The width betweenm the points is known as the spread. Until zfter World War I there were many different tyoes of collars that were commonly worn with many having rounded tips. The cuffs are also a shirt element, although this can be considered part of the sleeve. Sleeves are often dome as one-piece items with with plackets at the wrist. There are also shortened-length sleeves, but they did not appear until after World War I. There are two lengths. Short sleeves are usually cit anove the elnow. Half sleeves atre cut at the elbow. The cuff is a band of fabric around the wrist. There are other elenents such as the front, back, pockets and waist. The back is often done as one-piece, commonly done either as pleated or gathered. A key part of the shirt is the yoke, but this can often not be noted in available photographs. The yoke is a section of fabric behind the neck and over the shoulders. Many shorts are nuilt around the yoke. They can be one-piece or split in divided vertically in the middle, The sort can also have two front panels which overlap slightly down the middle on the placket to fasten with buttons or in realtively rare examples, studs.

Collars

Collars are one of the most prevalent shirt features. We do not much hve much information on the early 9th century. Collars on boys' shirted tended to be very small in the mod-9th century. Collars increased in size by the late 19th century. There were different types of collars, nost prominantly attached and detachable collars. There were also various styles. Younger boys in the late-19th century might wear lace collars. We also note plainer Eton and Peter Pan collars, although that term was not yet used. By the turn of the 20th century, ruffled collars becamme more common. A good example here is a boy in Washington, Pennsylvania about 1905. Many school age boys in the late 19th and early 20th century wore Eton collars when dressing up. By the 1950s preppy styles were popular, Many boys wore shirts with button-down collars. Collarless "T" shirts became increasing popular in the latter patof the 20th century. One reader writes in 2006, "I have great difficulty getting my son who is in 5th grade to dress up. He doesn't even like collared shirts and insists on wearing T-shirts to school because of peer presure. He tells me, 'Mom the other guys don't wear those shirts."

Sleeves

The second major element of a shirt is the sleeves. There are various aspects to the sleeves, including the length, width and cuffs. They were done in both long and short lengths as well as an intermidiary length elbow length. We are just beginning to develop information on sleeves. We only have a preliminary assessment at this time. Early shirts had long sleeves. The only exception was early blouses. Here the blouses followed the designs of children's dresses which were made with short sleeves. We see these short sleeved blouses in the 1840s and 50s, but less so in the 1860s. By the the 1870s we only note long sleeves for both shirts and blouses. We firsr notice short-sleeved shirts in the 1900s. They were the sailor blouses done wiuth open square collars. We notice short-sleeved shirts in the 1920s. We also notice differn lengths, both tight fitting and much wider. Here there were vaiations. Blouses might have ballon sleeves and the shoulder. We also notice very voluminous sleees further down. These were populr in the mid-19th century. The sleeves wee also done with and without cuffs.

Front

The shirt can also have two front panels which overlap slightly down the middle on the placket to fasten with buttons or in realtively rare examples, studs.

Back

The back is often done as one-piece, commonly done either as pleated or gathered. A key part of the shirt is the yoke, but this can often not be noted in available photographs. The yoke is a section of fabric behind the neck and over the shoulders. Many shorts are nuilt around the yoke. They can be one-piece or split in divided vertically in the middle,

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Created: 11:32 PM 4/30/2010
Last updated: 11:32 PM 4/30/2010