Fashions for Girls from "The Delineator" (August 1906)

Women's fashions of the 1900s were elaborate and impractical—and judging by these plates from The Delineator, so were the fashions worn by little girls.

Here we have costumes for girls aged from around two years old (second from the right, above) into their early teens.  The teenagers' clothes seem to be near copies of their mothers'—from their over-decorated hats, to their bloused and boned bodices, to the tucks, pleats and folds that shape and decorate their garments.  Only the length of their skirts indicate that these clothes are not meant to be worn by adults!

The younger children wear looser and easier fitting dresses (still, I note, heavily ornamented with ribbons and laces).  The youngest wear straight, unfitted frocks that fall to a little below the knees, and shoes and socks rather than stockings and boots.  The slightly older children wear dresses with waists dropped to around the hips.  (I wonder if this fashion influenced the clothes these same children would have worn as adults in the 1920s?)

Impractical and uncomfortable as these clothes look, I'm delighted to report there are patterns for more serviceable girls' clothes tucked away in the back pages of this issue of The Delineator.  The garments here were probably meant for "best", and plainer clothes were worn for school and play.