Figure 1.---This cabinet card portrait shows an English family's three childre. They look to be about 6-13 years old. The younger boy wear a ouble breasted suit jacket. His older brother wears a dounle-brested sailor suit. We see ajaunty boater the older boybis wearing, but are left to guess about the headwear of the other children. We are unsure about the date, but we would guess the 1890s. The studio was Sydney Victor White in Reading.

Collar-buttoning jackets domimated suit styles for boys in the mid-19th century. This was a style influenced by military jackets at mid-century. Gradually we see other styles becoming important and widely worn in the late-19th century, including cut-away jackets and lapel sack suits. We see them both in the photographic record and the mail order catalogs that began to appear. There were were several boys' suit jacket types for which double-breasted styling was employed. It was not the primary style for any of these suit styles, but it was at times employed. Skeleton suits apopwared before the turn ofv the 19th century andc werev worn through the 1820s. Some skeleton were dione with doubke-breasted styling, This was before the advent of photograpy so weare unsure just goe commion it was. It does not appear to have been the most common type, but without the large number of images provioded by photography we cannot at this time provided a definitive assessment. One of the most common and long lasting boy's suit style was the collar-buttoning jacket. It was mostly worn by pre-teen boys. It appeared before lapel suits began to be worn. It was basically the style of a U.S. Army jacket. We see them beginning in the 1840s, possibly influenced by the Mexican War. These were very plain jackets. Most has a single row of buttons, early collar buttoning jackets were done with sn unusally large number of buttons. While a single row of buttons were the most common, we do see some with the double row characteristic of double-breasted styling. This style was popular through the late-19th century. It declined in popularity after the turn-of-the 20th centuty. Sack suit appeared appeared in the mid-19th century. The sack suit was lapel jacket style. They were done in both the the single- and double-breasted styling. Double-breasted styling became very poopulat in the 1880s abd we see many of then in the 1880s-1900s decasdes. After that the single breasted style becomes the dominant style. We can follow this in some detal because of the growing photographic record. Men also wore lapel jackets, but thry generally wire frock suits of a different cut. The primary difference between boys and men's suits. howeverv were the oants. Gradually in the second half of the 19th century boys began wearing shortened-length pants whuch had become standard for boys in the 1880s. In the 20th century, especiallynafter World War I, single breasted suits were generally chosen for boys. American boys generally wore their suits with knickers while British boys wore shorts. Double breastedjackets, however, were relatively rare, even during the 1930s and 40s when double-breasted suits were popular for adults. Double breasted suits were a very common choice in the 19th century. This changed in the 20th century. have never been the most popular styles. Single breasted suits becanme standard for American boys. Double-breasted stylin persisted longer as a popular style for adult men. Designers occasionally since the 1960s bring out a line of double breasted suits for boys. Generally, however, they do not sell as well as single breasted blazers, but are considered stylish by many. As a boy in thev 1940s and 50s, I always thought of double breasted suits as giving an old fashioned, stolid look. Since the 1980s, howevrr, we think the double breasted suit has been perceived as a cutting edge stylistic look. Stylists now say that doubke breated suits, at least for boys gives a slimming look. Even so, the standard suit style is the singlke-breasted suit. The British conservative leader William Hague has been ordered by his spin doctors to change from double breasted to single breasted suits. As you may know he is still in his 30s and the idea is to make him look fatter and more substantial and therefore more able to command respect.