Figure 1.--This American boy is unidentified. He looks to be about 5 years old. He had his portrait taken in Alleganeey, Pennsylvania. The cabinent card portrait is undated, but was probably taken in the 1890s. He wears a formal white dress with very fancy balloon sleeves. The dress does not have sleeve cuffs. Rather a kind of wide sleeve seems to come out of the balloon that hangs down from the shoulder. Also ote the white long stockings. Black stockings were more common, but white stocking were sometimes worn by younger boys. Also note the strap shoes. They look white, but could have been a light pastel ciolor.

The width of dress sleeves also varried widely. Some were very plain straight-cut sleeves. Others were voluminous and fancy. And of course there were many gradients between these two extreems. We note varying styles over time. At mid-19th century, wide sleeves were popular to accomodate blouse sleeves that blouced out at the lower arm. Puff or balloon sleeves varied widely. Here the length varied. Often the balloning was just at the upper arm/shoulder. In other cases it extended extenivesly down the sleeve to the cuff. Note the boy here with a dress that had elaborate balloon or puffed sleeves (figure 1). There were sometimes elaborate decoration on the sleeves. The sleeves were made with and without cuffs. Some tomes the cuffs were made in the same material as the dress. Other sleeves had contrasting cuffs.

Created: 7:32 PM 9/13/2007
Last updated: 7:32 PM 9/13/2007