American Blouses: Floppy Bows


Figure 1.--Here we see twp brothers from Lima, Ohio wearing fancy blouses and floppy bows. The portait is undated, by was probably taken in the 1890s.

The fancy blouses worn by American boys during the late 19th and early 20thcenturies were worn both woth and without dloppy bows. This appears to have been entirely at the disgression of the mother's fashion sence. Bows were also popular for girls, especially hair bows. It is likely that girls took an interst in selecting and wearing bows. In the case for boys, however, it is likely that it was almost entirely bows that mother selected, insisted they wear, and did the bow tieing. We do not think adding floppy bow made the outfit any more dressy or formal. It was simply a fashionable decorative embellishment. Bows were worn with a variety of collar, some of which in the late 19th century were enormous.

Eton Collars


Fauntelroy Collars

Floppy bows were very commonly worn by American boys with Fauntleroy blouses. American boys wore their Fauntleroy blouses both with and without floppy bows. This included blouses worn with and without Fauntleroy jackets. Often ot was the younger boys that wore the fanciest Fauntleroy blouses and wore them as part of suits with jsckets, but this varied quite a bit. This was entire up to the mother's discression. There were no well establised conventions. Both were equally acceptable. Like the collars, the floppy bows varied in size. Many were quite large. Some were large enough to almost cover up the smaller collars. Some times we can not tell the type of collar. Often younger boys had very large floppy bows. We can almost always tell the Fauntleroy collar blouses because they were so large, but Eton, Perer Pan, andd other collars are often covered up. The bows were used to add a little color to what was often a black and white outfit. We notice bows in all kinds of colors asnd patterns, including white. Black seenms to have been less common, but given the black and white photoigraphy of the day. This is diigicult to assess. The children involved range from about 2 years of azge to yhounger teens. The older boys tended to wear the less fancy blouses and often without the classic Fauntleroy jackets.

Peter Pan Collars










HBC





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Created: 3:53 AM 8/6/2006
Last updated: 5:07 AM 5/6/2011