Figure 1.--This boy from Berne, North Carolina wears a summer Fauntelroy outfit, a white ruffled and lace trimmed blouse and light-colored knee pants. The black stockings suggest the 1890s. Note the large colored floppy bow.

We have a faurly extensive archive of floppy bow images, alkthough most are anerican studio portraits. We havbe less information on European trends although it is ckear that these bows wetre wideky wirn there as well. Most of the bow knots for large floppy bows were a fairly standard one. The two wings of the bow were generally about the same size as the tail. This was particularly true of the larger bows. There were some exception to this standard. Some bows were rather like string ties, although these were little seen by the 1880s. Other bows were relatively rare with little or no noticeable tail. These different knots probably had names at the time. Unfortunately we do not have details on these names. Interestingly the neatly tied perky bows seem to have been particularly popular in America. They were much less seen in England, France, and other European countries. Of course our American archive is much larger than our European archives, but we think we have enough of a sample to setermine that these bows were not as common in Europe as in America. We are developing country information. What we do know about these bows is huge differences in sizes. The larger bows seem nost common for younger boys. Most of the larger bows came from the late-1880s, 1890s, and very early-1900s. This of course was the Fauntleroy eras. The large bow the American boy is wearing here was fairly common during the Fauntleroy era, but we have seen even larger ones. We also notice quite a range of colors and patterns.

Created: 1:11 AM 1/15/2007
Last updated: 7:12 PM 5/1/2020