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Our knowledge of skirts worn by boys in different counties is incomplete at this time. We have a good bit of information on America. Much of our information on skirts is based on America because so many of our resources are American. We note quite a number of American boys wearing skirts. What we are not sure about is if skirts were actually purchased as separate garments for American boys or if we are just see the skirts worn as part of kilt suits. Notably we see boys American wearing skirts with no indication of kilt styling. Our more limited European archive means that we do not het have details about the skirts worn in Europe. We suspect that skirts were as popular in Britain as in America and perhaps France. We are less sure about other European countries, but we do know that boys did wear skirts during the 19th century in several other countries. Just how popular they were is not clear. Nor are we sure yet about regional patterns.
Boys wore skirts and kilts, both with and without jackets. We have less information about skirts than other skirted garments. This is in part because the great bulk of the images we have acquired show boys either wearing dresses are kilt-skirts with jackets as part of a suit. We have found, however, a number of portraits showing bows wearing skirts with just a blouse. We are not sure about the conventions here. This may have been an acceptable style or perhaps primarily a concession to the hot summer weather. We do not yet have sufficient information to build a meaningful chronology. Many of these images show boys wearing skirts done in a plaid or a plaid-like pattern. We think many of these portraits were taken during the summer and that the boys were just not wearing the matching jacket with the kilt-suit. We note many images of boys wearing blouses with kneepants during this period for similar reasons. We note some images, however, with boys wearing skirts that do not seem to be part of a suit. Either the boy is not wearing a suit jacket or the skirt is a pattern that seems unlikely to be done in a jacket. The convention was that a skirt could ve a loud pattern, but this was much less likely for the jacket. How common this convention was we are not sure. Also we have not noted boys in Europe wearing skirts, but this may be a reflection of our larger archive of American images. Again our assessment of this topic is complicated by the fact that the children in many available portraits are not identified.
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