Posted on March 29, 2022

All societies define childhood within certain parameters. From infancy to adolescence, there are societal expectations throughout the various stages of children's development concerning their capabilities and limitations, as well as how they should act and look. Clothing plays an integral role of the "look" of childhood in every era. An overview history of children's clothing provides insights into changes in child-rearing theory and practice, gender roles, the position of children in society, and similarities and differences between children's and adults' clothing.

• Early Children's Attire

Before the early-twentieth century, clothing worn by infants and young children shared a distinctive common feature-their clothing lacked sex distinction. The origins of this aspect of children's clothing stem from the sixteenth century, when European men and older boys began wearing doublets paired with breeches. Previously, both males and females of all ages (except for swaddled infants) had worn some type of gown, robe, or tunic. Once men began wearing bifurcated garments, however, male and female clothing became much more distinct. Breeches were reserved for men and older boys, while the members of society most subordinate to men-all females and the youngest boys-continued to wear skirted garments. To modern eyes, it may appear that when little boys of the past were attired in skirts or dresses, they were dressed "like girls," but to their contemporaries, boys and girls were simply dressed alike in clothing appropriate for small children.

• Swaddling and Babies

New theories put forth in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries about children and childhood greatly influenced children's clothing. The custom of swaddling-immobilizing newborn infants with linen wrappings over their diapers and shirts-had been in place for centuries. A traditional belief underlying swaddling was that babies' limbs needed to be straightened and supported or they would grow bent and misshapen. In the eighteenth century, medical concerns that swaddling weakened rather than strengthened children's limbs merged with new ideas about the nature of children and how they should be raised to gradually reduce the use of swaddling. For example, in philosopher John Locke's influential 1693 publication, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, he advocated abandoning swaddling altogether in favor of loose, lightweight clothing that allowed children freedom of movement. Over the next century, various authors expanded on Locke's theories and by 1800, most English and American parents no longer swaddled their children.

When swaddling was still customary in the early years of the eighteenth century, babies were taken out of swaddling at between two and four months and put into "slips," long linen or cotton dresses with fitted bodices and full skirts that extended a foot or more beyond the children's feet; these long slip outfits were called "long clothes." Once children began crawling and later walking, they wore "short clothes"-ankle-length skirts, called petticoats, paired with fitted, back-opening bodices that were frequently boned or stiffened. Girls wore this style until thirteen or fourteen, when they put on the front-opening gowns of adult women. Little boys wore petticoat outfits until they reached at least age four through seven, when they were "breeched" or considered mature enough to wear miniature versions of adult male clothing-coats, vests, and the exclusively male breeches. The age of breeching varied, depending on parental choice and the boy's maturity, which was defined as how masculine he appeared and acted. Breeching was an important rite of passage for young boys because it symbolized they were leaving childhood behind and beginning to take on male roles and responsibilities.

• Babies in Gowns

As the practice of swaddling declined, babies wore the long slip dresses from birth to about five months old. For crawling infants and toddlers, "frocks," ankle-length versions of the slip dresses, replaced stiffened bodices and petticoats by the 1760s. The clothing worn by older children also became less constricting in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Until the 1770s, when little boys were breeched, they essentially went from the petticoats of childhood into the adult male clothing appropriate for their station in life. Although boys were still breeched by about six or seven during the 1770s, they now began to wear somewhat more relaxed versions of adult clothing- looser-cut coats and open-necked shirts with ruffled collars-until their early teen years. Also in the 1770s, instead of the more formal bodice and petticoat combinations, girls continued to wear frock-style dresses, usually accented with wide waist sashes, until they were old enough for adult clothing.

These modifications in children's clothing affected women's clothing-the fine muslin chemise dresses worn by fashionable women of the 1780s and 1790s look remarkably similar to the frocks young children had been wearing since mid-century. However, the development of women's chemise dresses is more complex than the garments simply being adult versions of children's frocks. Beginning in the 1770s, there was general movement away from stiff brocades to softer silk and cotton fabrics in women's clothing, a trend that converged with a strong interest in the dress of classical antiquity in the 1780s and 1790s. Children's sheer white cotton frocks, accented with waist sashes giving a high-waisted look, provided a convenient model for women in the development of neoclassical fashions. By 1800, women, girls, and toddler boys all wore similarly styled, high-waisted dresses made up in lightweight silks and cottons.

• Skeleton Suits for Boys

A new type of transitional attire, specifically designed for small boys between the ages of three and seven, began to be worn about 1780. These outfits, called "skeleton suits" because they fit close to the body, consisted of ankle-length trousers buttoned onto a short jacket worn over a shirt with a wide collar edged in ruffles. Trousers, which came from lower class and military clothing, identified skeleton suits as male clothing, but at the same time set them apart from the suits with knee-length breeches worn by older boys and men. In the early 1800s, even after trousers had supplanted breeches as the fashionable choice, the jumpsuit-like skeleton suits, so unlike men's suits in style, still continued as distinctive dress for young boys. Babies in slips and toddlers in frocks, little boys in skeleton suits, and older boys who wore frilled collar shirts until their early teens, signaled a new attitude that extended childhood for boys, dividing it into the three distinct stages of infancy, boyhood, and youth.

Original article: https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/history-childrens-clothing