Three lectures with extensive visual material deal with children's clothing from 1838 to the 1920s. The starting points for the investigations are historical photographs, fashion plates and C&A advertisements, preserved historical clothing as well as novels.

In the first part, Martin Kamer sharpens the eye for the phenomenon that the toddlers in dresses shown in early photographs are often boys, and he develops criteria for their identification. Following on from this (from min. 19:45), Dr Maria Spitz examines children's clothing in C&A advertising from the 1880s to the 1920s, taking as her starting point Effi Briest's wardrobe in Theodor Fontane's novel of the same name. In the third lecture (from min. 33:03), Prof. Katharina Tietze analyses the photographs taken around 1900 of the three sons of Jenny Brown-Sulzer and Sidney William Brown - portraits of a Swiss industrialist family. The lectures show that dresses on boys and elements of boys' clothing on girls give clues to age rather than being interpreted in a gender-specific way.

Martin Kamer is an expert on historical fashion, collector and dealer.
Dr. Maria Spitz is curator for fashion and textiles at the Draiflessen Collection.
Prof. Katharina Tietze is Head of Trends & Identity at the Zurich University of the Arts.

Realisation: Remo Hegglin, Vater & Söhne Gm