American and Canadian women's journals were circulated in Canada and several French and English women's periodicals were also available. Among the latter was The Queen. All journals showed children's fashions from time to time but not often with such a wide age span as in this fashion plate from The Queen. It is evident that as girls became teenagers their dresses came increasingly to resemble their mothers'. This is also noticeable in girls' dresses in museums. Only the length of the skirt betrays the fact that the eldest girl is not yet "grown up"; it is not yet down to the floor. While all dresses are for dress-up occasions, the white one in the foreground, cut on princess lines, is a style found in simple everyday dresses of the 1870s and 1880s, even for small boys before they were breeched. The small boy in purple wears a dress with matching jacket. His cap, short hair, small collar and bow tie are the only masculine touches. The other boy wears a typical suit of the 1870s and 1880s; wide sash would only have been worn on special occasions.
Most of the children are wearing high boots. Well into the twentieth century these were always worn outdoors and for school. Girls who protested and many did were told by their mothers that boots were necessary if they wished to have slender ankles. With floor-length skirts, slender ankles were very desirable, along with small hands and feet and a slim waist.
Other points to note are the girls' hats and hair styles which reflect those of women of the day. The boys, on the other hand, have styles of their own. Pantelettes, or more likely, drawer-leg frills, show beneath two of the girls dresses. The two tone effect shown in the blue and mauve dresses was a recent innovation.
Courtesy: Harper's Queen, National Magazine Company Limited, London, England
