Photo Friday: 1930's Children's Clothes Edition

 Good morning!!

It's FRIDAY! I don't know how we made it, but we did! I have a pressing engagement at 10 am, so we're going to see how fast I can clack out a Photo Friday for you all, based on a pre-selected set of photos from my grandma's family in the early thirties'. In case you missed a family Photo Friday or two, my grandma, Hazel, was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in the 1920's, and lived there until she was eighteen, at which point she married my Tennessean granddaddy and moved south for good. 

What caught my eye this week, running through the family photos, were the preponderance of grown up clothes on little tiny tykes in photographs. I know we've talked about before how little fifties' children in miniaturized belted jackets and fedoras look like the living bee's knees, but it never ceases to surprise me that children in shrunk-down versions of adult ensembles appear to be EVEN CUTER than children in classic kid's clothes and pose.

Example: here's my grandma's brother Charles (left) and the gal herself in a snap shot circa 1930:

See my grandma's well nigh adult hat? Or Charles's belted tiny overcoat that looks like something Robert Montgomery would wear over a tuxedo while elegantly trying to win back Norma Shearer in a movie contemporaneous to this time?

While lots of kids' photos from the south, at least during the course of my mom and dad's photographic record, chronicle the youths running around in a temperate or fair weather state of dress, as you can in these photos, Falmouth doesn't mess around about wintertime cold, and these little guys are dressed accordingly. What's interesting to me is...according to what!

 I'm not sure if this is my grandma or one of the two older siblings she had that passed away in early childhood, but either way, this tot looks like the Stay-Puft man. Is the furry sleeve/headpiece thing part of a hooded jacket, over which a Carhartt like onesie has been placed? Look at the collar sticking out askew from the nape of the teeny guy's neck, and how his feet almost disappear under teeny gaiters. 

 Here's my grandma in an outfit I would like to have in adult size:

Sweet cloth coat? Check. Striped stockings and double strapped patent leather shoes? Check. A hat that looks exactly like an adult ladies' hat, only cuter for the the fact of being tiny? Check.

This might be the same older brother, only in a tonified outfit that matches more smoothly this time. Hat, jacket, and cardigan seem to be made of the same wool material. And look at his out in the snow like it's no thing with his shovel! "Whaddya want, ma, I got work to do! This driveway ain't gonna shovel itself!" Note the clapboard, New England buildings I mentioned in an earlier post making a snowy reappearance in this photo.

Above is one of my favorite photos of my grandma from her childhood, in which her impish face looks a lot like my sister when she was little. Another adult-like clothing combination. Look at the way the buttons are arranged in groups of three at the two closures on the coat. See the tiny fur detail at the neck and sleeves? JUST LIKE AN ADULT COAT, BUT LITTLE. Also, how the wool leggings overlap her sturdy leather shoes. Also, how I want a hat like this one and the one before MORE THAN EVER.

Last but not least, this guy (I think the same from the other two single-boy photos) is lookin' snazzy:

I LOVE this football styled helmet hat, and the wool overcoat. And his sweet, shadowed, cherubic expression under all this outerwear. What a cute little kid.

Do you have any photos in your collection of family or strangers' children in impossibly chic or grown up children's versions of adult clothes? Was there an outfit you had when you were a little guy or girl that made you look like a shrunk-down version of a very soignée adult? Which one of these kids' clothes pictures do you like the most? Let's talk!

Well, I gotta be off like a shot here...have a FANTASTIC weekend and I'll see you on the other side. Til then!