Butterick Sewing Pattern: Bell-hop Uniform (United States, early-20th century)


No. 1089.-- This Butterick pattern is labeled 'bell hop for fancy dress'. This suggests that it was not a uniform, but a costume for fancy dress ptterns. This may explain the younger sizes. We are not sure how popular this costume would have been. We might have thought that boys wouls prefer more action oriented costumes like soldiers or cowboys. The pattern is not dated, but looks like the early-20th century. The pattern nymber (No. 1089) may help us date the pattern.

We note some patterns that do not fit into the established garment categories. One of these was bell-hop uniform patterns for boys working in hotels. We always thought that the hotels gave the boys their uniforms. But we have found a Butterick bell-hop pattern for boys 6-17 years of age. We doubt if thgere were very many 6-year old bell-hops because the boys needed to be big enough to carry suitcases. This suggests that at least some mothers seem to have sewed the uniforms. We suspect this may have been for smaller hotels because larger hotels had very defenite uniform styles and not a generic style like the one here. We note that the pattern is labeled 'bell hop for fancy dress'. This suggests that it was not a uniform, but a costume for fancy dress ptterns. This may explain the younger sizes. We are not sure how popular this costume would have been. We might have thought that boys wouls prefer more action oriented costumes like soldiers or cowboys. The pattern is not dated, but looks like the early-20th century. The pattern nymber (No. 1089) may help us date the pattern.








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Created: 6:15 PM 8/16/2010
Last updated: 6:15 PM 8/16/2010