Top to Toe: Introduction

Black cotton short sleeved dress printed with coloured flowers, with a peplum at the waist; made in Germany in about 1930 (click image for larger version)

Changing attitudes towards childhood have informed how we have treated and subsequently dressed children throughout history. A child’s changing clothes signify a journey through childhood, marking important and symbolic events throughout their development from babies to adults.

Clothing has always played an important role in denoting status, wealth and self expression, through the child themself or through the tastes and aspirations of their parents. Today’s child is now targeted as a consumer in their own right - the choice of fashion for children wide-reaching, quickly changing and varied and the pressures of wearing the “right clothes” considerable. Read on for Milestones...