Dress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fashionable girl's dress was custom-made in Paris for the donor, Mrs. Barber, when she was 7 years old. Not only does the jacket follow the stylish lines of women's elegant dress of the time, it is constructed out of very sophisticated fabric that would have been used for adult clothing, and the buttons have very mature imagery on them. This is an example of what some might have felt was needlessly extravagant and uncomfortable attire for children, so popular during this period. Children's wear did not gain a universal level of comfort until the second quarter of the twentieth century.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art