A Buster Brown suit was a very popular style of clothing for young boys in the United States during the early 20th century. It was named after the comic strip character Buster Brown, created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault. [1]
It typically consisted of a belted, double-breasted tunic or jacket worn with a large round collar, floppy bow, and shorts or knickerbockers. It was often worn with a round straw hat and a haircut with bangs. [1] [2] Along with the sailor suit, the Eton suit, the Norfolk suit and the Fauntleroy suit, the Buster Brown suit is cited as one of the key looks in boys' clothing of the period. [3] [4]
Outcault got the idea for this suit from Prince Edward (later King Edward VII). As a child, Edward's mother, Queen Victoria, had him dressed in suits that looked like sailor suits that the English navy would wear. It was common in the 19th century for royal children to wear clothes similar to those of the military because it showed off their future roles of power and was also a sign of respect and loyalty to their country. On a visit to Ireland, Edward wore a sailor suit and had his portrait painted by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, the court artist. After the painting was done, copies were made as steel engravings for public sale. [5] This is what launched the suits into becoming more popular and a greater symbol of class and power.
The comic book character Buster Brown had very wealthy parents, so drawing him dressed up in a sailor suit was a symbol of his wealth and also a symbol of class, alluding to royalty and power. Knowing that sailor suits had this reputation and background explains why mothers chose to dress their sons in them, especially if they were trying to hide the fact that they were poor.
The suit was often chosen by mothers for their sons against their children's wishes. [6] It was perceived by mothers as a symbol of neatness and gentility but could lead to its wearer being mocked by other children and called a "sissy". [7] [8]
Mark Rothko, who arrived in the United States as a child immigrant with his family in 1913, was deliberately dressed in a Buster Brown suit made in Daugavpils to camouflage both the family's poverty and their Russian-Jewish origins. [9] The Buster Brown suit was also occasionally worn by older boys and men, such as the teenaged Eugene Bullard, a fan of the comic strip, who in the late 1900s purchased a Buster Brown suit with knickerbockers for Sunday best. [6]
The Japanese school uniform is modeled in appearance similar to that of the European-style naval uniforms. It was first used in Japan in the late 19th century, replacing the traditional kimono. Today, school uniforms are common in many of the Japanese public and private school systems. The Japanese word for this type of uniform is seifuku (制服).
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was published as a serial in St. Nicholas Magazine from November 1885 to October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's in 1886. The illustrations by Reginald B. Birch set fashion trends and the novel set a precedent in copyright law when Burnett won a lawsuit in 1888 against E. V. Seebohm over the rights to theatrical adaptations of the work.
Richard Felton Outcault was an American cartoonist. He was the creator of the series The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown and is considered a key pioneer of the modern comic strip.
Buster Brown is a comic-strip character created in 1902 by Richard F. Outcault. Adopted as the mascot of the Brown Shoe Company in 1904, Buster Brown, along with Mary Jane, and with his dog Tige, became well known to the American public in the early-20th century. The character's name was used to describe a popular style of suit for young boys, the Buster Brown suit, that reflected his outfit.
Fashion in the 1890s in European and European-influenced countries is characterized by long elegant lines, tall collars, and the rise of sportswear. It was an era of great dress reforms led by the invention of the drop-frame safety bicycle, which allowed women the opportunity to ride bicycles more comfortably, and therefore, created the need for appropriate clothing.
1870s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by a gradual return to a narrow silhouette after the full-skirted fashions of the 1850s and 1860s.
1830s fashion in Western and Western-influenced fashion is characterized by an emphasis on breadth, initially at the shoulder and later in the hips, in contrast to the narrower silhouettes that had predominated between 1800 and 1820.
Clerical clothing is non-liturgical clothing worn exclusively by clergy. It is distinct from vestments in that it is not reserved specifically for use in the liturgy. Practices vary: clerical clothing is sometimes worn under vestments, and sometimes as the everyday clothing or street wear of a priest, minister, or other clergy member. In some cases, it can be similar or identical to the habit of a monk or nun.
Semi-formal wear or half dress is a grouping of dress codes indicating the sort of clothes worn to events with a level of formality between informal wear and formal wear. In the modern era, the typical interpretation for men is black tie for evening wear and black lounge suit for day wear, corresponded by either a pant suit or an evening gown for women.
Mary Jane is an American term for a closed, low-cut shoe with one or more straps across the instep.
A sailor suit is a uniform traditionally worn by enlisted seamen in a navy or other governmental sea services. It later developed into a popular clothing style for children, especially as dress clothes.
1840s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by a narrow, natural shoulder line following the exaggerated puffed sleeves of the later 1820s and 1830s. The narrower shoulder was accompanied by a lower waistline for both men and women.
1850s fashion in Western and Western-influenced clothing is characterized by an increase in the width of women's skirts supported by crinolines or hoops, the mass production of sewing machines, and the beginnings of dress reform. Masculine styles began to originate more in London, while female fashions originated almost exclusively in Paris.
A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date.
The most characteristic North American fashion trend from the 1930s to 1945 was attention at the shoulder, with butterfly sleeves and banjo sleeves, and exaggerated shoulder pads for both men and women by the 1940s. The period also saw the first widespread use of man-made fibers, especially rayon for dresses and viscose for linings and lingerie, and synthetic nylon stockings. The zipper became widely used. These essentially U.S. developments were echoed, in varying degrees, in Britain and Europe. Suntans became fashionable in the early 1930s, along with travel to the resorts along the Mediterranean, in the Bahamas, and on the east coast of Florida where one can acquire a tan, leading to new categories of clothes: white dinner jackets for men and beach pajamas, halter tops, and bare midriffs for women.
Fashion in the period 1900–1909 in the Western world continued the severe, long and elegant lines of the late 1890s. Tall, stiff collars characterize the period, as do women's broad hats and full "Gibson Girl" hairstyles. A new, columnar silhouette introduced by the couturiers of Paris late in the decade signaled the approaching abandonment of the corset as an indispensable garment.
Fashion from 1910 to 1919 in the Western world was characterized by a rich and exotic opulence in the first half of the decade in contrast with the somber practicality of garments worn during the Great War. Men's trousers were worn cuffed to ankle-length and creased. Skirts rose from floor length to well above the ankle, women began to bob their hair, and the stage was set for the radical new fashions associated with the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
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 but may be difficult for the layperson to discern.
Fashion in the twenty years between 1775 and 1795 in Western culture became simpler and less elaborate. These changes were a result of emerging modern ideals of selfhood, the declining fashionability of highly elaborate Rococo styles, and the widespread embrace of the rationalistic or "classical" ideals of Enlightenment philosophes.
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. 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.
The three most important innovations in the last part of the century were: the sailor suit, the "Little Lord Fauntleroy" suit, and the "Buster Brown" suit.
From the age of seven Gene remembers being dressed in his neat Buster Brown suit and being taken to a dance school in downtown Pittsburgh by his determined mother. He remembers, too, the taunts and jeers of the rough neighbourhood boys, who would place their hands on their hips effeminately and call him a sissy