Children's feminine clothes and head gear!

Their origins
It was the marriage of a posh frock, prairie skirt\full skirt\1950's vintage full skirt and girly child fashions as one garment, who's roots go back to some combined girls' skirt and blouse styles of the 1890s.

1930s
There was the need for a smart dress for girls that did not have a military (navy) connection in the Interwar Years.

1930s vintage girls' dress


It was a colored garment formed of a loosely fitted A-line knee skirt, white belt, 1/4 length balloon sleeves, kick-up shoulders, fitted bodice and a peter pan or shirt style collar. A colourd bow may be under the white collar to. The bodice may have an embroidered front and always buttoned up the back. Toddlers had full length puffed sleeves with white cuffs and a white frill or lacy band around the hemline of the skirt. It was a major Western European, American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, S. African and Irish fashion trend, which eventualy got as far as parts of the the USSR, Poland and Japan.

White, matching and contrasting lightly decorated aprons were common since it looked more grown up, protected toddler clothes during play and older children's clothes from dirt accrued whilst helping their parents in their household duties. This version die out in WW2.

1930s vintage Shirley Temple dress
It had a large square embroidered collar, no belt, no apron and buttoned up the front. It became popular in the UK and America along with the child movie starlets, Shirley Temple, who wore it often. Toddlers had full length puffed sleeves with white cuffs and a white frill or lacy band around the hemline of the skirt. It died out in WW2.

1930s vintage Alice dress
Macmillan's Little Folks book of 1903 portrayed Alice in the blue and white proto-1950s vintage girls' dress with a white apron. The outfit was worn by some girls in the UK during the 1930s. It was declined by 1939 and died out in WW2.

A 1907 edition of Alice in Wonderland portrayed her in a sailor dress and not her usual blue and white 'Alice dress'.

1940s
War time shortages meant that the frills, lace, aprons, embroideries and long toddler sleeves were removed and the waist bands contracted, as did the girls' waist bands under food rationing.

1950-1959
The 1930s vintage Alice dress came back, in a modified form, with a vengeance and became a cult thing in the early to mid 1950s, especially for younger children in the UK. It had also added rickrack to it's decorations, the skirt was less A-shaped and the waist line had widened out like the girls' waist bands had due to more food.

The fitted nature of the dress was often abandoned for younger children and the back fastening was mostly changed from buttons to a zip for all ages. Cloth was of various colours and patterns. The skirts were now just below the knee length to. Aprons were now very rare and American versions were baggier round the waist than UK and Irish versions. The front was on many occasions smock-stitched as a decoration and some had embroidery on the collar.

Some followed the style of the teens' and young adults' 1950's vintage full skirt, some of which were shaped more like a wearing a Romantic tutu than a normal skirt. This trend only occurred in the west during the 1950s.

It was a major British fashion trend and popular in the USA, but also occurred as lesser Dutch, French, W. German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, S. African and Irish fashion trends.

1950s vintage girls' smock-stitched dress
It had smock-stitched on it as a decoration and embroidery on the collar.

1950s vintage girls' rikrack dress


It had rickrack on it as a decoration and embroidery on the collar.

Rickrack (sometimes spelled ricrac) is a "flat narrow braid woven in zigzag form, used as a trimming for clothing or curtains." Before the prevalence of sewing machines and sergers, rickrack was used to provide a finished edge to fabric.

Made of cotton or polyester, rickrack is stitched or glued to the edges of an item. Its zig-zag configuration repeats every third of an inch (about one centimeter) and is sold in multiple colors and textures. Rickrack's popularity peaked in the 1970s and is associated with the Little House on the Prairie TV show and the pioneer sentiment brought about by the 1976 American bicentennial.

1950s vintage girls' non rickrack dress
It was the direct 'non-Alice' descendant of the 1930s version of the dress.

1960-1970
The traditional fitted nature of the dress and some times the back fastening was dropped as the bodice and collar were elasticated. The front was on many occasions had smock-stitched as a decoration, that was now elasticated. Both the rickrack and coloured embroideries thread made the bodice look very decorative, but was deceptive, since the stretchy decoration pulled in a baggier bodice, thus making it very tightly fitting whilst also allowing room both to move and to get in it with out fastenings. The waste band and collar were made of elastic cloth as a norm on the non-fastening types and at times on fastening types to. It's popularity had imploded outside the UK by 1970.

1975-1985
It still held some sway as posh clothing for special occasions and for small children. .

1980s girls' vintage party dress
.

1985-1995
It was to be mainly associated with dresses for babies and toddlers and younger children no longer wore them by the mid 1990s. The skirts were made like Prairie skirts at this time.

2000-2005
They were worn by a few babies in the UK, Ireland, Australia and the USA.

1980s school acceptance note
Allowed providing it was longer than knee length and was in school colours.

Overview


They were various tie-on head coverings made of cloth created at various times before 1900 for both decoration, modesty and head protection. They had a mini-revival in the early 1950s, late 1960s and early 1970s, especially for young girls.

Their origins
A Dutch cap or Dutch bonnet is a style of woman's hat associated with the various traditional Dutch woman's costumes. Usually made of white cotton or lace, it is sometimes characterised by triangular flaps or wings that turn up on either side. It can resemble some styles of nurse's cloth\paper uniform hat. It is now part of the traditional costumes of the Netherlands. Many parts of the Netherlands have their own traditional costumes and other Western European nations also us similar caps. A less lacy and show-offish version was worn by agricultural workers in North America, Australasia and Western Europe. Sorbian bonnets were similar, but made out of heavy cloth and did not have the option of a back of the neck protecting flap, since their primary role was to keep heads and ears warm in the bitter weather of eastern Germany.

The Pioneer Bonnet/Western Women's Pioneer/Prairie Sunbonnets/Children's Pioneer Prairie Sunbonnet were a versatile accessory in pioneer days of mid to late 19th century. It was the meting point of modesty, ear protection and hair protection in cloth.

A mob cap or mob-cap is a round, gathered or pleated cloth (usually linen) bonnet consisting of a caul to cover the hair, a frilled or ruffled brim, and (often) a ribbon band, with a full crown, worn by married women in the British Georgian period, when it was called a "bonnet". Originally an informal style, the bonnet became a high-fashion item as part of the adoption of simple "country" clothing in the later 18th and early 19th centuries. It was an indoor fashion, and was worn under a hat for outdoor wear. During the French Revolution, the name "Mob Cap" caught on because the poorer women who were involved in the riots (riotus mobs) wore them, but they had been in style for middle class and even aristocracy since the century began.

By the British Victorian period, mob caps lingered as the head covering of servants and nurses, and small mob caps, not covering the hair, remained part of these uniforms into the early 20th century.

All of them were common for girls and some younger teenage women in the 19th and early 20th Centuries as a way to keep their heads warm in damp and chilly houses; or as a cover for their heads after they had been shaved due to either fever, ringworm and\or fleas. Agricultural and peasent labourers wore them to protect their heads and hair.

1920-1959
The Great British Flea and Ringworm Outbreak of the mid to late 1920s and the damp, unheated housing during the Great Depression lead to them becoming a girls' dress norm and a teenage girls' common article of clothing. All bonnets became useful during WW2 as bombed out families lived in barns, basements, ruins and tents. The thinker Sorbian bonnet and knitted versions of all bonnet types were popular. This re-occurrence had fizzled out by 1955.

1960-1980
They had a mini-revival of the cloth variants in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially for girls. They were cheep and easy made as well as ruralistic, pretty, femanin, anti-capitalist and environmentally friendly. It started to get traction in about 1962 and had taken off by about 1969. It was prey much over by 1975 and had passed out of fashion 1977.

The comeback
Today's girls' party wear may include any of them on occasion. The modern adult versions of mob caps are still worn in the pharmaceutical industry, in clean-rooms, and in other sectors where the hair has to be contained to avoid contamination of stuff. These mob caps are usually a simple circle shape with an elastic band and may be made of disposable materials such as polyethylene, spun-bound polypropylene or of nylon netting.

1980s school acceptance note
Banned.

Sailor dresses


A sailor dress is a child's or woman's dress that follows the styling of the sailor suit, particularly the bodice and collar treatment. A sailor-collared blouse is called a middy blouse (middy derives from midshipman). In early 20th century America, sailor dresses were very popularly known as Peter Thomson dresses after the former naval tailor credited with creating the style.

Their origins
Dresses with sailor styling were known before the Peter Thomson design took hold. In Sweden in 1887, a 'sailor dress' with natural waist and pleated skirt was among the designs promoted by the dress reform movement as appropriate for young girls. It had got to Hawaii by about 1894.

Peter Thomson (sometimes spelled Thompson) had tailoring establishments in New York and Philadelphia in around 1900. His original sailor dresses and suits, for both women and children (including young boys) are represented in several American museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The 'Peter Thomson dress' was made from cotton or linen for summer wear, or wool in winter. It was promoted as an ideal costume or uniform for female students and schoolchildren, and was popular with those trying to establish a "standardized style" of clothing.

A 1907 edition of Alice in Wonderland portrayed her in a salor dress and not her usual blue and white 'Alice dress'.

1910-1930
They would also become a major out of school child and adolescent fashion craze in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA between about 1910 and 1930.

By 1919, the Peter Thomson dress was regarded as a valid option for school Western uniform and was described as synonymous with "good taste for girls of 14-18 years old for many years." Peter Thomson styling was also applied to the bodices of early female bathing costumes for all ages.

Some young and middle aged British, Australian and American women also wore sailor dresses in the 1900s and 1910s.

1935-1965
Although sailor styling is sometimes seen on women's dresses, principally the late teens and 20-somethings, since the mid-20th century it is mainly associated with dresses for babies and small children. They also were worn in both adolecents in Poland and older children parts of the USA during the late 1930s. They took off in Japan and Thailand as school a type of uniform after WW2. Adult wore them to varying degrees in the Western nations between about 1930 and about 1955.

1975-1995
During the late 20th century sailor styling became associated with maternity dresses, which has led to some negativity towards sailor styles for womenswear and the general idea of a woman dressing 'like a child'. They were also worn by children of 10 years old or less. Sailor dress were to be worn occasionally by girls in the UK during early 1980s, but was also sometimes worn by teenagers and 20-somethings. They then had a comback in the late 1980s and even more so in the early 1990s for older children to were.

It was to be mainly associated with dresses for babies and small children by 1990, but was also only occasionally worn by teenagers and 20-somethings until the mid 1990s, when they abandoned it.

The comeback
It was only baby an toddler wear after 2000. The maternity clothing designer Liz Lange declared in 2007 that "She shouldn't have to dress like a child just because she's having a child; it's one thing to put a toddler in a sailor suit but it's another thing completely to condemn a grown woman to such a fate."

1980s school acceptance
Allowed as long as it was in school colours, not too tight, longer than knee length and shorter than mid shin\mid calf length.

The phenomena
Breeching was the occasion when a small boy was first dressed in breeches or trousers. From the mid-16th century until the late 19th or early 20th century, young boys in the Western world were unbreeched and wore gowns or dresses until an age that varied between two and eight. Various forms of relatively subtle differences usually enabled others to tell little boys from little girls, in codes that modern art historians are able to understand.

Breeching was an important rite of passage in the life of a boy, looked forward to with much excitement, and often celebrated with a small party. It often marked the point at which the father became more involved with the raising of a boy.

The main reason for keeping boys in dresses was toilet training, or the lack thereof. The change was probably made once boys had reached the age when they could easily undo the rather complicated fastenings of many early modern breeches and trousers. Before roughly 1550 various styles of long robes were in any case commonly worn by adult males of various sorts, so boys wearing them could probably not be said to form a distinct phenomenon. Dresses were also easier to make with room for future growth, in an age when clothes were much more expensive than now for all classes. The "age of reason" was generally considered to be about seven, and breeching corresponded roughly with that age for much of the period.

For working-class children, about whom we know even less than their better-off contemporaries, it may well have marked the start of a working life. The debate between his parents over the breeching of the hero of Tristram Shandy (1761) suggests that the timing of the event could be rather arbitrary; in this case it is his father who suggests the time has arrived. The 17th-century French cleric and memoirist François-Timoléon de Choisy is supposed to have been dressed in girls' clothes until he was eighteen.

Pinaforing, also called petticoating, is a type of forced feminization that involves dressing a man or boy in girls' clothing. While the practice has come to be a rare, socially unacceptable form of humiliating punishment, it has risen up as both a subgenre of erotic literature or other expression of sexual fantasy.

There is some evidence that "petticoat punishment" has occasionally been used as a form of discipline, with credible stories of such going back at least to Victorian times. "Petticoat punishment," as a sexual fetish interest, involves imagining or reenacting this scenario. However, as a fetish interest, these activities are usually heavily exaggerated and sexualized, including elaborate humiliation and public nudity. They often involve the male being feminized into a sissy by a powerful female presence (often a mother or aunt) in front of his cousins, sisters, or in some cases, girls of his own age whom he had offended by his boorish behavior.

Petticoating roleplay may include being forced to wear makeup and to carry dolls, purses, and other items associated with girls. Sometimes, boys were made to perform tasks that they considered to be "girls' work" and to appear in public in girls' clothing with their mothers, who occasionally dressed in matching outfits. Some people claim that for the mothers, pinaforing sometimes had a sexual context, and many mothers who disciplined their sons in this fashion either had long wanted daughters or found it erotic to feminize their sons.[4][not in citation given] In addition, according to the folklore of people with this condition, this type of castigation is found in the history of some of those who later develop transvestic fetishism.[5]

Petticoat discipline also occurs in the context of some marital relationships, as a means by which a wife may exert control over her husband. This may involve various items of feminine clothing or underwear in a variety of contexts, ranging from the husband having to wear a feminine apron around the house whilst performing household chores, to the wife insisting that the husband wear a brassiere and/or panties on a full-time basis[6] under ordinary male clothing. In all such circumstances, there is a strong reliance on the element of humiliation, whether actual or potential, should the husband's secret be discovered.

Petticoating a child is illegal in many Islamic states.[citation needed] It is considered highly immoral to punish a child in this fashion, but still exists in many of the Commonwealth states in a small extent as a legal practice as long as the child is not being sexually abused.[citation needed] The thin line between petticoating and child sexual abuse has been a serious factor in petticoating, and has at least one occasion, led to a child sexual abuse charge.[citation needed]

Petticoating as a sexual-roleplay activity is generally considered legal, with the exception of going into public in an obscene fashion, causing public disturbances or indecent exposure.

The generation factor
As far as I can tell the collapsed standard of living among older people stirred anger amongst the baby boomer generation. They thought they could rebuild build the UK not for the nation's good, but for there own long turm personal gain. Their kids were split between what could be termed as relatively normal folk and the Yuppies and or Blairites, who's reckless and semi-criminal boom soon collapsed. This was soon followed by a economically rigged come criminal insane global mess (of which the UK was a leading part of it) that led to a near fatal world collapse ~10 years later in 2008. The Millennials, who are digitally native, generally enjoy living and working in urban areas are narcissism, state\cooperate servile, obsessed with self-entitlement, politically detached, money grubbing, anti-green, ideologically void and sports mad. The non-compliant remnant of current teenagers and most kids are lost, going delinquent, dropping out of society, unwanted and without hope; since they are disowned by their parents and hated by there grand-parents (ironic realy, since this generation called their oldies trash in the 1960's and 1970s). The baby boomers now hate any one that is not them or vasselating to them, calling all change a teenage/immigrant plot against them (ironic realy, since this generation wanted to rewrite socialite's rules in the 1960's and 1970s). The new problem is that 18-45 year old men now regularly kill themselves, especially by suicide by train in the First Great Western zone of operation since ~2016!

Usefull % calculator site links

 * 1) http://www.calculator.net/percent-calculator.html
 * 2) http://www.onlineconversion.com/percentcalc.htm

Also see

 * Culture
 * OTL
 * OTL Decolonisation notes
 * OTL Natural disasters
 * Why South Vietnamese wore cardigans in Israel
 * Feminine clothes and head gear!