"It is impossible to overemphasise the role played by knitted garments in the democratisation of children’s clothes,” says Noreen Marshall, author of Dictionary Of Children’s Clothes. Knitwear became popular after zoologist Dr Gustav Jäger wrote

Until the turn of the 20th century, uncomfortable layers were a staple of children’s clothes: not just to keep warm, but also to protect modesty and add shape to the outer clothes children wore. Sometimes, a few extra layers were just what

Little Lord Fauntleroy was created by author Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1886, but it was the illustrations by Reginald Birch that sealed the Fauntleroy look. The velvet breeches and white lace collar worn by Cedric in the novel were also worn by the author’s two sons.

Resourceful parents, like Sex & The City star Sarah Jessica Parker, still employ this canny thrift. “My son James Wilkie only wears hand-me-downs,” she says, “I don’t think I have ever bought him clothes.”

“How we dress our children reflects how we see ourselves as parents,” wrote Jess Cartner-Morley exploring the Mini-Me phenomenon in The Guardian last year. Dressing a child in miniature versions of their own clothes is a way for adults to flag up