Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The History of the Collar Box

Robin @ the Primitive Hutch wanted to know more about
the Collar Box from my Monday Montage.


I decided to do a post for everyone regarding the
history of these unique boxes.

Men's historical fashion albeit is not as familiar to most folks
as women's fashion of the last 1800's to early 1900's.
Clothing was hand made back then,
which included men's shirts, collars and cuffs.
Because clothing was hand made, that made it more expensive.

Men would wear undershirts to protect their dress shirts,
however the places that had the most body contact in a shirt
were at the collar and cuff.
Thus these were added to preserve a shirt in the places
 that an undershirt did not protect.
It was much more cost efficient to purchase just a collar and a set of cuffs
 then to purchase the entire shirt with them on.
Thus the need for the collar box. 

By removing the collar and cuffs to wash the shirt,
made it possible to save on the expense of buying these items
because all you had to do was to purchase a new shirt
and re-button the collar and cuffs to the new shirt.

Collar Boxes were used to keep the collar and cuffs
from getting dirty when not being used.
These boxes were invented around the 1860's.

Once factories were able to mass produce clothing,
shirts were less expensive and more available.
Thus it was no longer necessary to separate
 the collar and cuffs anymore,
and by the 1930's these types of shirts were no longer made....
neither were the collar boxes.

We take so many things for granted nowadays.
Washing machines, dry cleaners...
these are just a few of the things
that our fore-fathers and fore-mothers
did not have.

Thank you for the comment Robin,
and I hope this answered your question.
If anyone else would like to know more about any of
the antiques I feature, just let me know.
I would be happy to tell you more about them.

Warm Blessings to all
Janice




3 comments:

  1. Thanks Janice!
    I always like to know a little history of an item. I really appreciate it that you did a post on this. Thanks for sharing!
    Prim Blessings
    Robin

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  2. Love history lessons..smile..Warm Blessings!~Amy

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  3. Very interesting Janice....guess that's one of the reasons I love antiques so much - there's just so much history in each and every piece. I bet you are a wealth of interesting facts....Smiles & Hugs ~ Robin

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