High waisted dresses for girls 1977 by Style Patterns Ltd. © V&A Museum of Childhood
Louise Banbury heads to the V&A Museum of Childhood to look at kids' fashion through the ages with a show called Top to Toe, which runs until April 19 2009.
As many a parent will testify, keeping up-to-date with the changing tastes and fads of children’s fashion is no easy task. But there may be consolation in the fact that this is nothing new – modern children might have more ‘pester power’ than previous generations, but the desire to have the ‘right look’ has been around for a very long time, as the Top to Toe exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood reveals.
The exhibition explores the history of children’s clothing over the past 300 years and includes more than 100 items selected from the V&A’s vast collection. Visitors get up close to 18th-century crinolines, photos of children wearing knitted woollen swimming costumes, school gymslips from the 1940s, and the iconic ‘snorkel’ parka from the 1970s.
The display is set around four themes: Milestones, Changing Fashions, Fashion Drivers, and Practical Fashions. Pieces from different periods are grouped together, so it’s easy to see which themes keep coming back, what has stayed the same and what has changed.
What hasn’t changed is the desire to keep up with current fashions and to convey, via clothing, a family’s wealth and status. We see a beautiful example of luxury clothing, 19th-century style – a muff and hat made entirely of peacock feathers – alongside a modern luxury must-have, the Ugg boot.
Just what every boy wanted in the fifties - Golden Eagle double knitted pullovers. Pattern for knitted jumpers by Golden Eagle 1950-1955. © V&A Museum of Childhood
Today, celebrities and the media have a powerful influence on what children wear, and in the Fashion Drivers section visitors find out what influenced fashion in the past.
A well-to-do child living in the 1840s, for example, would probably have worn a sailor suit, which was first worn by Prince Albert Edward. In 1886, Francis Hodgson Burnett’s story made the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit all the rage, and in the 1930s Shirley Temple costumes were a common sight.
In the past, however, children had far less choice in what they wore, and there were strict dress codes relating to age. In the Milestones section, we learn about the ‘breeching ceremony’ – the occasion of a small boy’s transition from dresses to breeches.
In Victorian times, you could estimate the age of a girl by the length of her skirt, with hemlines dropping as the girl grew older. As a toddler in the 18th century, you probably would have worn a pudding hat like the one on display – designed to protect a child’s head from knocks and scrapes.
And any modern child who complains that they don’t have enough say over their attire should spare a thought for the wearer of the dress from 1750, displayed here complete with long, silk ‘leading strings’. These leads, we are told, were commonly used to keep control of younger children, but older girls continued to wear them on formal occasions as a symbol of their junior, subordinate status.
Burnous, 1860-1870. This child*s cape or burnous has been inspired by the shape of a traditional garment (originally a cloak from North Africa worn by the Berber people). It is embellished with luxurious silk embroidery probably of Indian influence.© V&A Museum of Childhood
A big change in fashion consumption was brought about by mass-production, which reached its ascendency in the 1980s. Now, clothes were cheaper to buy than to make at home.
As a reminder of the days when sewing, patching up and darning were more common, we see some original Clothkits – a 1970s brand that provided everything you needed to run up a child’s outfit, as well as patterns for doll’s clothes to make with the leftover fabric.
A selection of homemade clothes is also on display, including a simple Mr Men and Little Miss skirt from 1983, and a small boy’s waistcoat cut down from a betrothal jacket from the 1800s.
With its mixture of nostalgia and education, this exhibition has something for every generation. Older visitors will enjoy revisiting their childhood via the outfits that defined them, while children will come away armed with plenty of historical knowledge – and feeling grateful that they don’t have to wear knitted swimming costumes, dresses for boys and pudding hats.
