Figure 1.--This opalotype or milk glass portrait looks to have been taken in the 1890s. Notice the verical Norfolk box pleats. He holds a wide-brimmed hat with stremers. The Opalotype process was developed in England in 1857. And we see examples like this one throughout the secind half of the 19th centuries. Studio usually tried to use the color of the garmnts to guide the colorization process. The photographic image was printed on sheets of opaque, translucent white glass. The opalotypes like this were sometimes hand-tinted.

Grey was one of the popular colors for the suits wirn by American biys. We are not sure about the full chronology of grey as a popular color for boys' suits. We do not yet know about the 18th century. We notice grey suits throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. We have only limited imformation on the 19th century. We know it was a color that was used in the 19th century, but we are not sure how common it was. Here we see an opolotype of an unidentified boy in a grey suit (figure 1). Grey is mentioned in available catalogs. There were no American 19th century color photography. We do have colorized photographhs which provide some indication, although not the precise shade. Grey became a very important color for boys' suits in the 20th century. Grey became increasingly important in the 20th centry for boys's suit. The term grey flannel suit became a fashion standard for men and boys. With the advent of color photography and increasingly common color printing, we have much more color information in the 20th century, especially the second half of the 20th century. Grey was one of the popular colors used for juvenile Eton suits as can be sen on the previous page.

Created: 8:29 AM 2/8/2015
Last updated: 8:30 AM 2/8/2015