The fashion plate above represents clothing worn by children in 1857. It falls right in the middle of the years when firms like Kister, Kestner, Hertwig and others were exporting thousands of glazed china dolls to global markets.
Dolls who weren’t advertised as “covered wagon chinas”, because the term didn’t exist until half a century later.
It was coined by antique dealers and collectors in the late 1800’s to describe dolls with hairdos that had been popular on the wagon trail. And because most of these doll’s original clothing was long gone, it became common practice to redress them in humble calicos and homespuns—in keeping with their new nickname.
I know what you’re thinking, but hold your objections, because I’m perfectly aware that plenty of china dolls own original prairie style dresses. That’s because some of these dolls were sold in America to children who traveled West.
It’s just that, not all of them were.
Many children who owned these dolls had never seen the West, or a covered wagon. And their dolls would have been dressed to reflect their lives – in England, or France, or countless other countries. The hairstyles of these dolls were not just popular on wagon trails—they were considered the height of fashion for all girls and women of the time, as is evident in this snippet of fashion plate from the year 1850.
That’s right. The little girl with wagon-trail-esque ringlets is wearing a dress akin to a French enfantine doll. And the well-dressed child in the photo below is also wearing her hair in curls.
All this is to say, if you’re dressing a china doll from this period, you have far more options than you might have known. And as you’ll see when I dress Hattie, she’s eager to wear them all!