Figure 1.--Here we see Harold Hawkins (writing indistince) amd Millie Ford, probably cousins. The writing is in beautiful scriptm, but a little difficult to read. They look to bev aboutb 2-5 yeras old. The portrait was taken December 22, 1890, a Christmas portrait. Harold wears a jacket ovr what looks like a plaid dress, although it could be a two-piece garment. The studio name is hard to make out, but it was located in New Haven, Connecticut. Click on the image for a fuller discussion.

We see these kilt suit styled dresses commonly in the 1870s and 80s. The boy here is a good example (figure 1). While dresses we think that that they were mostly worn by boys, we think some girls may have worn them, but not nearly as commonly as boys. This is something we are looking into. We are not sure about the age conventions. It may have been the same as for actual kilt suits, but we are not yet sure about this. They tended to be fussy styles with a combination of buttons, pleats jacketed styling and other feature. Some were obviously drsses. Others you have to look more closely to tell that they were not kilt suits. A good example is Roy Hammomd in 1881. Some had low waistlines. An example is the dress worn by Maurice Frost about 1880. The convention iof yunger boys wearung dresses weaken in the 1890s and begun to dsaooear after the turn-of-the century. We see some of the kilt-suit styled dresses in the 1890s, but have not yet fiund any from the 1900s-decade.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing kilt pages:
[Return to the Main American kilt suit type page]
[Return to the Main American kilt suit page]
[Return to the Main kilt page]
[Lace collar] [Floppy bows] [Cut-away jackets] [Kilt suits] [Stiped long stockings] [Shoes]
[Scottish kilts] [Scottish boys clothing] [Scottish school uniform] [Highland dance]
[Irish kilts] [Irish boys clothing] [Irish step dancing]
[Greek kilts]

Created: 1:04 AM 2/2/2024
Last updated: 9:22 PM 2/2/2024