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English boys clothes: garments -- dress styles sailor dresses
English Boys' Dress Styles: Specific Styles--Sailor Dresses
Figure 1.--This cabinet card is undated, but looks to have been taken in the 1890s. Written on the back is, "Love from Freddie & Philip to Auntie." Unfortunatelt we do not have their family names. The portrait was taken by T. Fisher & Cototteham, N. London. The two boys look to be about 2-4 years old. The older boys wears a collar-buttoning knee pants suit with aarge ruffled collsr. His little brother wears a sailor dress. The dress has a N-collar, but the stripe detailing is not the traditional three-stipe styling.
Sailor styled dresses appear to have been very popular for younger boys not yet beeeched, but were not exclusively worn by boys. We also notice girls wearing sailor dresses. We have noted portraits of English boys wearing sailor dresses. Some look rather like middly blouses worn with skirts/kilts. These might be called kilt suits. Other skirted outfits are clearly one-piece dresses. Here it is not always easy to tell the difference from a photograph--our major source of information. Our archive of 19th century English images is limited so we have not yet been able to address much information about sailor dresses, but we are working on the issue. We are not sure when sailor dresses first appeared. We have not yet found 1860s examples, but they presumably exist. We see both boys and girls wearing them in the 1870s. Unfortunstely, so far most of the images we have found are undated. And many others do not identify who is who. We do not even know if the first sailor dress were worn by boys or girls. Some were styled traditionally with three-stripe detailing, but there were other sailor-inspired dresses which are easily recignizable as a sailor style. Sailor dresses for boys seem popular in the early 1890. The potrait here is an example (figure 1). Notice how the V-front has been trucated. And the large number of stripes. The convention was, hoever, sharply declining by the turn-of-the-20th century.
Prevalence
Sailor styled dresses appear to have been very popular for younger boys not yet beeeched. Of course given the ages of the boys, popularity meant what mothers thought. We are not yet sure about prevalence. We simply do not have a large enough archive to assess prevalence at this time..
Sailor dresses were of course not exclusively worn by boys. We also notice girls wearing sailor dresses. We have noted portraits of English boys wearing sailor dresses. Unfortunately given the ages of the younger children wearung sailor dresses, it is often virtually impossible to know who is who unless the names are indicated which is usually not the case. There are clues to pick up on, but in many cases there is no way to be sure. And without that it graetly complicates asessing gender trends.
Garments
Some of sailor-styled skirted garmednts look rather like middly blouses worn with skirts/kilts. These might be called kilt suits. Other skirted outfits are clearly one-piece dresses. Here it is not always easy to tell the difference from a photograph--our major source of information. Our archive of 19th century English images is limited so we have not yet been able to address much information about sailor dresses, but we are working on the issue.
Chronology
We are not sure when sailor dresses first appeared. We have not yet found 1860s examples, but they presumably exist. We see both boys and girls wearing them in the 1870s. Unfortunstely, so far most of the images we have found are undated. And many others do not identuify who is who. We do not even know if the first sailor dress were worn by boys or girls.
Styling
Some were styled traditionally wuth three-stripe detailing, but there were other sailor-inspired dresses which are easily recignizable as a sailor style. Sailor dresses for boys seem popular in the early 1890. The potrait here is an example (figure 1). Notice how the V-front has been truncated. And the large number of stripes. Ytaditional suits had the three strips for NNeson's great victories. The large number here was not very common. The convention was, hoever, sharply declining by the turn-of-the-20th century.
