Types of Large White Collars


Figure 1.--This unidentified boy was photographed wearing a large white collar. It is a soft collar and looks much like a Peter Pan collar, except that it has pointed tips like an Eton collar. We do not know the nationality of this boy, but the photograph is European. The white border around the portrait suggests that it was probably taken about 1930.

A varietyy of large white collars for boys became popular in the 1870s. We note two basis types of collars, stiff collars like the Eton collar and soft collars like the Peter Pan collars. They were worn with various garments. Boys in the early 20th century wore tunics of various design with large white collars. Some wore rounded Peter Pan collars. Other boys wore stiff Eton collars. Other collars are more difficult to identify as there are wide variations in size and shape. The two basic styles, however, are the pointed and rounded collars. The rounded collars are commonly called Peter OPan collars. The pointed collars are siometimes reffered to as Rton collars, although true Eton collars are very stiff and sit up high against the neck. Some collars appear not to have the rounded Peter Pan shape or the stiffness of the pointed Eton collar. The collar the boy in the image here is a good example (figure 1). It is a soft large white collar, but with pointed tips. The soft large white collars were generally worn by younger boys, but the stiff Eton collars were worn by a larger age range.







HBC




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Created: 11:48 PM 11/12/2004
Last updated: 11:48 PM 11/12/2004