Figure 1.--Here we see a little Soviet girl with a huge hair bow. The photogtph was taken in July 1987. She looks to be about 5 years old. After the disolution of the Soviet Union we no longer see the large hairbows (1991).

At the turn of the 20th century, girls were wearing quite large bow, even girls of highschool age. Some of these bows were massive, a major factor in portraits at the time. The huge hair bows were not the dominant type. but we see quite a few of them. By this time it was only girls wearing hairbows to any extent and only girls wearing the really large ones. This continued through the 1910s and into the 20s. The large bows were especially common in the 1910s. The peak time for these hair bows, both in size and prevalence was early in the 20th century (1910s). We think the girl here is a good example (figure 1). This was cetainly the case for the United States, but we think most other countries as well. This seems to have affect headwear trends. By the 1920s, these really large hairbows began to disappear. We do see large ones in the Soviet Union, especially when uniforms were required after World War II. This continued into the 1980s. Girls wore iniforms to school. The pinfores could vary, but hairs bows were the only really unregulated items in which the girls could express themselves.

Navigate the Girls' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[About Us]
[Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Color] [Countries] [Difficult images] >> combine w/ photo interprtation [Fashion] [Families] [Garments] [Gender conventions] [Hair] [Literature]
[Photo intrpretation] [School] [Sisters]
[Return to the Historical Girls Clothing Home Site]

Created: 11:39 PM 4/2/2022
Last updated: 11:39 PM 4/2/2022