Dressed ‘as if for a Carnival’: Solving the Mystery of the Origins of Children’s Fashion. A New Perspective on the History and Historiography of Children’s Dress

Abstract

The article has a double focus: explaining the so-far obscure origins of children’s fashion in the later eighteenth century and putting its emergence in the context of the ‘grand narrative’ concerning the ‘discovery of childhood’ during this pivotal period. Contrary to Rousseau’s famous dismissal of the hussar suit, the role of ‘fancy dress’ inspiration in the development of children’s fashions for the first time purposefully meant to distinguish the (male) child from the grown-ups and, concurrent with the Enlightenment’s ideas on childhood, emerges as central rather than marginal. The repertory of styles adopted for boys’ wear is shown to have been inspired by various ethnic and historical dress traditions rooted in the fascination with masquerade characteristic of the Rococo culture but harnessed to express the emerging new attitudes. Among them, special attention is given to inspirations by Polish national dress.

Second, the article takes on the argument presented by Daniel Thomas Cook in his inspiring article in Textile History, 42, no. 1 (2011). Having acknowledged the foundational role of fashion history in the emergence of childhood studies, Cook regards its present status as peripheral. He dismisses the underlying premise of its principal ‘grand narrative’ as based on a fruitless distinction between utility (and functionality) and fashion rather than the invention or discovery of the ‘child’ and ‘childhood’. While partially accepting Cook’s criticism, the article argues that the ‘grand narrative’, thus modified and expanded, retains its usefulness. In the nineteenth century, the ‘fancy dress’ and ‘playfulness’ theme continued, reflected in the most popular children’s styles (sailor suit, Little Lord Fauntleroy suit) and a range of others, temporarily or locally prominent, and intertwining with multifarious cultural, artistic, social and commercial developments.

Notes

1 My research on this topic was supported by a grant of the National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki) in Poland, UMO-2015/17/B/HS3/00171.

2 D. T. Cook, ‘Embracing Ambiguity in the Historiography of Children’s Dress’, Textile History, 42, no. 1 (2011), pp. 7–21.

3 Ibid., p. 12.

4 Ibid., p. 8. This view is presented by a number of historians: P. Macquoid, Children’s Clothes (London: Batsford, 1925); J. Laver, Clothes (New York: Horizon, 1951); E. Ewing, History of Children’s Costume (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977); A. Guppy, Children’s Clothes, 1939–1970: The Advent of Fashion (London: Blandford Press, 1978); E. A. Worrell, Children’s Costume in America, 1607–1920 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980); M. Sichel, History of Children’s Costume (London: Batsford, 1983); C. Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750 (London: Drama Book and Batsford, 1989).

5 Cook, ‘Embracing Ambiguity’, p. 10.

6 C. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, transcribed from the 1903 Chapman and Hall edition by David Price, The Project Gutenberg ebook 882, 2009, Chapter VI — Meditations in Monmouth-street, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/882/882-h/882-h.htm (accessed 14 February 2020).

7 Cook, ‘Embracing Ambiguity’, p. 10.

8 ‘The History of Costume as Art-Historical Discipline (Editorial Note)’, Burlington Magazine, 117, no. 868 (1975), p. 433.

9 C. Rose, Making, Selling and Wearing Boys’ Clothes in Late-Victorian England (London: Routledge, 2016).

10 Ewing, History of Children’s Costume, p. 42; A. Buck, Clothes and the Child (Carlton: Ruth Bean, 1996), pp. 14, 32; Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750, pp. 17, 32.

11 A. Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (Harvard: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 312.

12 D. Langley Moore, The Child in Fashion (London: Batsford, 1953), p. 12.

13 Ewing, History of Children’s Costume; Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750; R. Bleckwenn, Geselschaftliche Funktionen bűrgerlicher Kinderkleidung in Deutschland zwischen etwa 1770 und 1900 (Münster: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, 1989); Buck, Clothes and the Child; A. Drążkowska, Odzież dziecięca w Polsce w XVII i XVIII w. (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2007).

14 Ewing, History of Children’s Costume, p. 48.

15 Ibid., p. 48.

16 Ibid., p. 46.

17 Moore, The Child in Fashion, p. 15.

18 P. Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, trans. R. Baldick (London: Jonathan Cape, 1973), pp. 56–57.

19 Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750, pp. 48, 50.

20 N. Marshall, Dictionary of Children’s Clothes (London: V&A Publications, 2008), p. 17.

21 The starost was a royal official in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania).

22 J. Schopenhauer, Youthful Life, and Pictures of Travel: Being the Autobiography of Madame Schopenhauer. Translated from the German, trans. E. W. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1847), vol. i, pp. 244–45.

23 Ibid., pp. 238–39.

24 David Garrick was the era’s most admired Hamlet. Although his portrayals in the character of Hamlet do not show the actor wearing a Van Dyck suit, he did wear it on stage and chose it for his most important portrait: David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy painted by Joshua Reynolds in 1761. In 1768, Reynolds again portrayed Garrick wearing a brown Van Dyck suit, this time in the character of Kiteley, in Every Man in his Humour. Ironically, Reynolds himself was pretty sceptical about the Van Dyck costume in contemporary portraiture.

25 L. Gołębiowski, Ubiory w Polszcze od najdawniejszych czasów aż do chwil obecnych sposobem dykcyonarza ułożone i opisane (Warszawa: A. Gałęzowski i Komp., 1830; reprinted Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe 1983), p. 71.

26 J.-J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. B. Foxley, The Project Gutenberg ebook 5427, 2004, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5427/5427-h/5427-h.htm (accessed 14 February 2020).

27 Ewing, History of Children’s Costume, p. 43; Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750, p. 48.

28 A. Ribeiro, The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England 1730 to 1790, and its Relation to Fancy Dress in Portraiture (London and New York: Courtauld Institute of Art, 1984), p. 421; A. Ribeiro, ‘Hussars in Masquerade’, Apollo, 195 (1977), pp. 111–16.

29 Stiftung Museum Kunstpalace, Düsseldorf, https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheepdog_rex/36093913962/in/photostream/ (accessed 14 February 2020).

30 E. Hackspiel-Mikosh, ‘Ein Knabe in Husarenuniform, Kleidung und Erziehung im 18. Jahrhundert. Neue Erkentnisse zu einem Kinderporträt in der Stiftung Museum Kunstpalace Dusseldorf’, in Das Bild vom Kind im Spiegel seiner Kleidung. Von prähistorischer Zeit bis zur Gegenwart, ed A. Patz gen. Scieck and U.-C. Bergemann (Regensburg: Verlag Schnell & Steinem, 2015), pp. 150–63.

31 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

32 Rousseau, Emile, Book i, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5427/5427-h/5427-h.htm#link2H_4_0002 (accessed 14 February 2020).

33 Ibid.

34 M. Craske, Art in Europe 1700–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 145–218.

35 Rousseau, Emile, Book i.

36 Ibid.

37 Rousseau, Emile Book iv, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5427/5427-h/5427-h.htm#link2H_4_0005 (accessed 14 February 2020).

38 Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, p. 313.

39 Legion of Honour Museum, San Francisco.

40 Royal Collection Trust.

41 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Innsbruck.

42 Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750, p. 48.

43 E. Orlińska-Mianowska, Modny świat XVIII wieku. Katalog ubiorów od początku XVIII do początku XIX wieku ze zbiorów Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo BOSZ, 2003), cat. IV/8, p. 204, illus.

44 K. Johansen, ‘“Polish” Garments’, in Lions of Fashion: Male Fashion of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth Centuries, ed. L. Rangdtröm (Stockholm: Livrustkammaren, 2002), cat. 114, p. 331, fig. p. 109.

45 E. Micke-Broniarek and M. Ochno, eds, The Child in the Painting from the Sixteenth to the Late Nineteenth Century in the Collections of Polish Museums (Warsaw: Wilanow Palace Museum, 2004), p. 394.

46 Ibid., cat. IV/4, p. 202, illus.

47 Two instructive monographs on historic Polish national dress are I. Turnau, Ubiór narodowy w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej (Warszawa: Instytut Historii Kultury Materialnej, PAN, 1999); B. Biedrońska-Słotowa, Polski ubiór narodowy zwany kontuszowym. Dzieje i przemiany opracowane na podstawie zachowanych ubiorów zabytkowych i ich części oraz w świetle źródeł ikonograficznych i literackich (Kraków: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, 2005).

48 On boy’s fashions in Poland during this period, see Drążkowska, Odzież dziecięca w Polsce w XVII i XVIII w., pp. 91–100. D. Żołądź-Strzelczyk and Katarzyna Kabacińska-Łuczak, Życie dziecka na ziemiach polskich od XVI do XVIII w. (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2012), pp. 84–98.

49 M. Możdżyńska-Nawotka, ‘Królewska maskarada, czyli rozwiązanie zagadki tzw. hiszpańskiego stroju koronacyjnego Stanisława Augusta’, Kronika Zamkowa. Roczniki, 1, no. 67 (2014), pp. 133–48.

50 Anonymous painter, Portrait of a Boy in Polish Dress, late eighteenth century, Museum of the Jagiellon University, Kraków; Henri François Riesener, Portrait of Zygmunt Krasiński as a Child, after 1816, National Museum in Warsaw.

51 Micke-Broniarek and Ochno, The Child in the Painting, p. 394.

52 M. Możdżyńska-Nawotka, Dawna moda dziecięca (Wrocław: Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu, 2013), p. 123.

53 L. Nalewajska, Moda męska w XIX i na początku XX wieku. Fashionable, Dandys, Elegant (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2010), pp. 185–223.

54 Rose, Making, Selling and Wearing Boys’ Clothes, ch. 7.

55 Możdżyńska-Nawotka, Dawna moda dziecięca, pp. 163–73.

56 First published in 1888 as a serialised novel (Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s Boarding School) in St Nicholas Magazine. In the same year 1888, the novella was published in book form by Frederick Warne, London and Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

57 Cook, ‘Embracing Ambiguity’, p. 7.

58 Bleckwenn, Geselschaftliche Funktionen, p. 199. Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750, p. 49.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Małgorzata Możdżyńska-Nawotka

Małgorzata Możdżyńska-Nawotka, Phd, is Keeper of Historic Textiles and Clothing at the National Museum in Wrocław (1999– ), and Adjunct Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Wrocław. She has an MA in Art History (1984, University of Wrocław), MSc in Textiles and Clothing (Ohio State University, 1993) and PhD in Art History (University of Wrocław, 2007). Her publications on fashion history include several books and museum catalogues, scholarly articles and columns in national magazines. She has curated a number of topical exhibitions at Poland’s leading museums.