American Kilt Suits Chronology: The 1870s--Decade Trends
Figure 1.--The boy in this CDV portrait way named Georgie. He looks to be about 5 yeas old. Georgie wears what had become a standard kilt suit. We see a suit jacket designed to be worn with a kilt. Jacket designs varies. This none is a collar-buttoning jacket. And a kilt not a skirt. Notice the plain front and pleated sides and back. Here we have a flat fabric. Muted plaids were very common. Mother has added a lace collar. The CDV was undated, but the award medals suggest it was taken in the late-1870s, probably around 1877-78. The studio was J. Landy in Cincinati, Ohio.
The kilt suit does not appear to have been commonly worn until the 1870s. We are not precisely sure when the kilt suit appeared. As we have not yet found them being commonly worn in the 1860s, although we see a few examples in the late 1860s. But they varied widely in design and material. It is the 1870s when we see what became the kilt suit become
stabdard boys wer with standard design features. The kilt suit seems to have first become a major style during the 1870s. We do not yet have a detailed time line. Unfortunately many available images are undated and we have had to estimate the dates. We have found a few images that can be dated, but so far mostly in the late-70s. We do not know, for example, when the kilt suit first became popular during the 1870s. Our information is not yet detailed enough to tell us just when during the 1870s that they became popular. Nor do we know who introduced the style to the United States. We suspect that it was some time in the early 1870s as we do note quite a number of boys wearing them during the decade. A good example is Charles Corwing from Minnesota. Period fashion magazines provide a great deal of useful information about fashion trends and conventions. The fashion writers in Harper's Bazaar provided some advice to mothers about boys' dresses and kilts--"Small boy's clothes" (1877). We have a portrait of an Ohio boy taken about this time. We notice a Minnesota boy wearing a kilt suit withn a fancy jacket in 1879.
