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# After the success of the novel Little Lord Fauntleroy in the 1880s, the outfit of beret, dark jacket, knee-length breeches, coloured silk sash and lace-and-bow shirt became almost obligatory in a boy's wardrobe on both…
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/posle-uspekha-romana-malenkii-lord-fauntleroi-v-1880-e-kostium-iz-bereta-temnoi-kurtochki-pantalon-do-kolena-tsvetnogo-shelkovogo-poiasa-i-sorochki-s-kruzhevami-i-bantom-stal-chut-li-ne/
- Published: 2023-03-20T09:02:18.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:36:53.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, Mores, Pop Culture, Ethnography

After the success of the novel *Little Lord Fauntleroy* in the 1880s, the outfit of beret, dark jacket, knee-length breeches, coloured silk sash and lace-and-bow shirt became almost obligatory in a boy's wardrobe on both sides of the Atlantic. Suddenly English, French, American and even Russian boys looked as if they had stepped out of Gainsborough's portrait of Jonathan Buttall.

But not every boy was happy to wear curls, velvet and bright ribbons and to pass for an aristocrat of the seventeenth century. One eight-year-old from Iowa even burned down his father's barn because he was being made to dress as Fauntleroy. A whole movement against the Fauntleroy suit arose, and it was set against, say, the plain and comfortable attire of Huckleberry Finn.

In essence, only some 200 years ago all children's clothing was simply a reduced copy of adult dress, and it was only when culture granted childhood a value of its own that children gained the chance to dress differently, with an eye to a separate, children's world. Today's children's fashion, as we observe every day, has again begun to rework adult clothing. This is happening not because childhood has lost cultural significance, but because the things that suit almost everyone equally have become more comfortable.

If we leaf through the lookbook of some popular maker of children's clothing, we shall see that artistic and literary parallels continue to matter in the shaping of children's micro-styles, but no longer as a whim of adults; they are now an organic part of fashion's diversity.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_8648@20-03-2023_12-02-18.jpg)