English

Noun

1. The act of dressing a boy in trousers for the first time
2. A conduit through which exhaust gases are conducted to a chimney

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 or three and seven or eight. It was an important rite of passage in the life of a boy, looked forward to with much excitement. It often marked the point at which the father became more involved with the raising of a boy.

Reasons

No doubt the main reason for keeping boys in dresses was toilet training. 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 French cleric and memoirist François-Timoléon de Choisy is supposed to have been dressed in girl's clothes until he was eighteen.

Celebrations

In the 19th century, photographs were often taken of the boy in his new trousers, typically with his father. He might also collect small gifts of money by going round the neighbourhood showing off his new clothes. Friends, of the mother as much as the boy, might gather to see his first appearance. A letter of 1679 from Lady Anne North to her widowed and absent son gives a lengthy account of the breeching of her grandson:"…Never had any bride that was to be dressed upon her wedding-night more hands about her, some the legs and some the armes, the taylor buttn'ing and other putting on the sword, and so many lookers on that had I not a ffinger [sic] amongst them I could not have seen him. When he was quit drest he acted his part as well as any of them…. since you could not have the first sight I resolved you should have a full relation…". The dresses he wore before she calls "coats".

Unbreeched boys

The first progression, for both boys and girls, was when they were shortcoated or taken out of the long dresses that came well below the feet that were worn by babies - and which have survived as the modern Christening robe. It was not possible to walk in these, which no doubt dictated the timing of the change. Toddlers' gowns often featured leading strings, which were narrow straps of fabric or ribbon attached at the shoulder and held by an adult while the child was learning to walk.

After this stage, in the Early Modern period it is usually not too difficult to distinguish between small boys and girls in commissioned portraits of the wealthy, even where the precise identities are no longer known. The smaller figures of small children in genre painting have less detail, and painters often did not trouble to include distinguishing props as they did in portraits. Working-class children presumably were more likely than the rich to wear handed down clothes that were used by both sexes. In portraits the colours of clothes often keep the rough gender distinctions we see in adults — girls wear white or pale colours, and boys darker ones, including red. This may not entirely reflect reality, but the differences in hairstyles, and in the style of clothing at the chest, throat and neck, waist, and often the cuffs, presumably do. In the 19th century, perhaps as childhood became sentimentalised, it becomes harder to tell the clothing apart between the sexes; the hair remains the best guide, but some mothers were evidently unable to resist keeping this long too. By this time the age of breeching was falling closer to two or three, where it would remain. Boys in most periods had shorter hair, often cut in a straight fringe, whilst girl's hair was longer, and in earlier periods sometimes worn "up" in adult styles, at least for special occasions like portraits. In the 19th century, wearing hair up itself became a significant rite of passage for girls at puberty, as part of their "coming out" into society. Younger girls' hair was always long, or plaited. Sometimes a quiff or large curl emerges from under a boy's cap. Boys are most likely to have side partings, and girls centre partings.

Girls' bodices usually reflected adult styles, in their best clothes at least, and low bodices and necklaces are common. Boys often, though not always, had dresses that were closed up to the neck-line, and often buttoned at the front — rare for girls. They frequently wear belts, and in periods when female dresses had a V at the waist, this is often seen on little girls, but not on boys. Linen and lace at the neck and cuffs tend to follow adult styles for each gender, although again the clothes worn in portraits no doubt do not reflect everyday wear, and may not reflect even best clothes accurately.

Unbreeched boys of the nobility are sometimes seen wearing swords or daggers on a belt. A speech by King Leontes from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale implies that, as common sense would suggest, these could not be drawn, and were purely for show: In the late 18th century, new philosophies of child-rearing led to clothes that were thought especially suitable for children. Toddlers wore washable dresses called frocks of linen or cotton. English and American boys after perhaps three began to wear rather short pantaloons and short jackets, and for very young boys the skeleton suit was introduced. These gave the first real alternative to dresses, and became fashionable across Europe. The skeleton suit consisted of trousers and tight-fitting jacket, buttoned together at the waist or higher up; they were not unlike the romper suit introduced in the early 20th century. But dresses for boys never disappeared, and now at about knee-length, sometimes with visible pantaloons called pantalettes as underwear (a style also worn by little girls) they again became common from the 1820s.

As the next stage, from the mid-19th century boys usually progressed into shorts at breeching — again these are more accommodating to growth, and cheaper. The knickerbocker suit was also popular. In England and some other countries, many school uniforms still mandate shorts for boys until about nine or ten. The jackets of boys after breeching lacked adult tails, and this may have influenced the adult tail-less styles which developed, initially for casual wear of various sorts, like the smoking-jacket and sports jacket. After the First World War the wearing of dresses seems finally to have died out, except for babies.

Gallery

Notes

References

• Boy's Dress from the Museum of Childhood, London. (accessed Sept 17, 2007)
• MOIFA, Santa Fe. (accessed Sept 17, 2007)
• Skirts and Breeching, Open University, accessed Sept 17, 2007.

• Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500–1914, Abrams, 1996. ISBN 0810963175
• Baumgarten, Linda: What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, Yale University Press,2002. ISBN 0300095805
• Netherton, Robin, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, editors, Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Volume 3, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, and Rochester, NY, the Boydell Press 2007, ISBN 9781843832911
• Payne, Blanche; Winakor, Geitel; Farrell-Beck Jane: The History of Costume, from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Twentieth Century, 2nd Edn, pp. 424–5, HarperCollins, 1992. ISBN0060471417

back band, backstrap, bearing rein, bellyband, bit, blinders, blinds, bridle, caparison, cavesson, checkrein, cheekpiece, chinband, cinch, collar, crownband, crupper, curb, gag swivel, girth, hackamore, halter, hames, hametugs, harness, headgear, headstall, hip straps, jaquima, jerk line, lines, martingale, noseband, pole strap, reins, ribbons, saddle, shaft tug, side check, snaffle, surcingle, tack, tackle, trappings, tug, winker braces, yoke