Well dressed boys wore long pants skeleton suits in the last decade of te 18th Century and the early decades of the 19th Century. They were called skeleton suits because the boys were slender. An open neck blouse trimmed with lace or other elegant triming. Kate Greenaway is best known for her lovely illustrations of boys in skeleton suits and other Empire fashions and girls in long flowing dresses. A famous Pears' soap ad pictured a curly-headed boy about eight or so in a skeleton suit and elaborate collar ruffles, foreshadowing the lace collars employed in the Fautleroy suits of the later 19th Century.

Some of the best known illustrations of the chikldren's fashion of the Empire period of the early 19th Century were drawn by Kate Greenaway. She drew during the Victorian period after mid-Century, but the drawings are extremely acurate. They serve as the basis for endless valentines and sentimental drawings and porceline reproductions. As mentioned earlier, it was in the 1880's that Kate Greenaway's charming drawings of children met with tremendous success. In her little birthday books and cards which were first published in 1873 she adapted the Empire style to her own taste producing little figures that appealed to everyone. The costumes were simple, artistic designs that were more suitable to little tots than the current over-decorated mode. She became famous in Europe and America and her little boys and girls have come down to us in the dress of the small pages and ring bearers as wellm as flower bearers in wedding pageants. Note that none of the children in her drawings have bare legs. Rather the boys wear high wasted trousers with frilly trim. Some times she drew the boys with with ruffled, open necked blouses, but generally not the pantaletts in which some boys were dressed.

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Well dressed boys wore skeleton suits in the last decade of te 18th Century and the early decades of the 19th Century, about 1790 into the 1930s. They were called skeleton suits because the boys were slender. An open neck blouse trimmed with lace or other elegant triming. The first two decades of this era were the period in which the Empire fashion raised waistlines of mother, daughter and small boy up under the arms. This basically classic style regardless of the age in which it returns is always charming and artistic. It is the most appropriate, of all children's costumes ever designed, especially for little girls.

The skeleton suit consisted of a tight jacket, with two rows of ornamental buttons in front ascending over the shoulders; ankle-length trousers buttoned to and over the jacket round the waist. Charles Dickens described a boy in a skeleton suit: "A skeleton suit, one of those straight blue cloth cases in which small boys used to be confined before belts and tunics had come in ... An ingenious contrivance for displaying the symmetry of a boy's figure by fastening him into a very tight jacket, with an ornamental row of buttons over each shoulder and then buttoning his trousers over it so as to give his legs the appearance of being hooked on just under his arm pits." (Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1838-39.)

Sometimes boys just wore the blouse without a jacket. Skeleton suits generaly consisted of a jacket or coat and long, ankel length sailor trousers. The jacket was sometimes a contrasting color to the trousers. The jacket may have been tucked into the trousers well above the waist. Deep frilled turned down-collars was especially elaborate for the younger boys. The trousers buttoned on to the jacket to hold then up, sometimes with a multi-buttoned front pannel. Boys did not wear belts, but colorful sashes for decorative effect were sometimes added for dress occasions. The trousers which might be trimed with lace. Interestingly their fathers at the time wore knee length pants and looked down on long trousers as plebian. The boy's trousers might have been made of silk or velvet. Younger boys might have a one piece jumper outfit with the jacket and trousers combined in one front buttoning outfit. Such jumpers might be made of browm linnen or kerseymere white cambric. As they were for younger boys there were generally white frills at the collar and ankels. A large Eton collar might be added for sligtly older boys who would soon graduate to Eton suits. Skeleton suits were worn with white stockings and flat-soled strap slippers or pumps. A military-style cap was often added for effect.

Playclothes were made of muslin and nankeen. With their long pantaloons, boys wore short jackets, a soft blouse and a round-brimmed hat with a ribbon band.

During the wig period of the preceding century it was not unusual to dress a boy's hair like a wig and dust it with powder. Now the hair was cropped instead of the former tortuous curl-papers, curling iron and pomade.

Little girls were freed of the boned, corset body, wearing instead a soft muslin dress sash-bound in place of lined silks and velvets. A slip was worn under the slim frock and as the style shortened, frilled lace-trimmed tubes or "false pantalets" tied at the knees were designed a modesty pieces to conceal the legs. These were also worn by younger boys. Occasionally noted in the new fashion journals that had come into existence, such illustrations shocked many to see legs featured in this manner. Seemingly, folks grew accustomed to the fact that females do have legs because by the 1830's, both young girls and women did wear drawers. But it required a quarter century for the garment to become custom in feminine dress. In America the fashion prevailed from about 1810-1850, that is the fashion of pantalets showing below the skirts. Pantalets were also worn by young boys instead of long trousers. A contemporary fashion note indicates that pantalets for daywear were of nankeen or calico and that those worn during a period of mourning were of black crepe.

In America during the first quarter of the century caps were commonly worn in the house and outdoors by children and women. Upon going out, a hat or bonnet of straw or beaver, according to the season, was put on over the cap and tied under the chin, a very becoming fashion to all females.

Infants were wrapped in long cloaks of merino, pains-takingly and lovingly embroidered, wadded and lined with soft silk and edged with swansdown, a baby's garment for most of the century.

In the 1820s the waistline for girls and boys went back to normal. Skirts and boys' trousers grew fuller and puffed sleeves appeared in the leg-o'-mutton style. Fashion swung from the simplicity of the earlier mode to as much ruffling, ribbon, ruching, embroidery and trimming as the garment would hold. Hats and bonnets were decked with all the bow knots they could carry. The dainty white and tinted muslins, lawns, percales and gauges gave way to organdie) gingham and taffeta In deeper colors. From here on into the first decade of the twentieth century design in costumes was doomed to clutter and fussiness.

Some of the best known illustations of children's clothes during this period was Kate Greenaway. Her drawings show boys in long pants suits and jumpers with charming open-knecked ruffled collars. Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) was particularly charmed by the juvenile fashions of the Empire period. She chose that period, rather than her more drab period, for her lovely illustrations. A famous Pears' soap ad pictured a curly-headed boy about eight or so in a skeleton suit and elaborate collar ruffles, foreshadowing the lace collars employed in the Fautleroy suits of the later 19th Century.