Figure 1.--This painting by Thomas Gainsburough was of his nephew, Edward Richard Gardiner. It was painted in the 1760s, but depicts 17th Century Cavalier dress. Reportedly he used his nephew to prepare for the famous "Blue Boy" painting. Edward wears the same costume as worn by the boy in "Blue Boy". |
Boys for much of the 18th Century, after
breeching , continued to wear scaled-down versions of their fathers clothes. There were no specialized children's clothes for boys beyond the
dresses they wore when little. Ruffled collars, however, were worn by boys throughout the century. As adult men often wore ruffled collars, boys after breeching would also wear them.
As specialized children's clothing became
increasingly popular toward the end of the decade.
The ruffled collars boys wore with knee breeches and jackets were simply incorporated into the increasingly popular skeleton suits. Open collared blouses with
ruffled collars were the most common blouse worn with skeleton suits. Many of the blouses had quite large ruffled collars. The 18th Century skeleton suits can usually be destinguished from 19th Century suits as skeleton suits were intially made with
knee breeches and only began to be worn with long trousers after the turn of the cebtury. Thus the blouses and ruffled collars can usually be dated.
Ruffled collars were also worn with the tunics popular for boys during the early 19th century.
Figure 2.--This famous painting by Sir John Everett Millans shows he large ruffled collars worn by boys in the early 19th Century. I do not yet have the date of the painting. The painting became famous as an advertisement for Pearl's soap. |
Ruffled collars worn with suits almost always included matching wrist ruffles as well. The size of the wrist ruffles were mostly relative to the size of the collar. Thus large ruffled collars
were usually worn with large wrist ruffles. After the turn of the century the wrist ruffles became less common, except with Fauntleroy suits.
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