Figure 1.-- The next youngest boy wore a short pants saior suit. He had a matching cap, althuogh he is not wearing it in the group photograph here (figure 1). Sailor suits were a popular boys style in France, but by the 1950s had gone out of style and was only being worn by younger boys and even then not very commonly. His little brother is at the right, click on the image for a page on him.

The next youngest boy wore a short pants saior suit. He had a matching cap, althuogh he is not wearing it in the group photograph here (figure 1). Sailor suits were a popular boys style in France, but by the 1950s had gone out of style and was only being worn by younger boys and even then not very commonly. We suspect that this was a rather traditional middle-class family to still dressing the children in sailor suits. The boy here looks to be about 6 years old. The word on the boy's cap band or tally is "Marine" meaning navy. Marin without the final "e" means sailor. A sailor suit is "costume marin", a sailor cap "chapeau de marin". I'm not sure what color the suit was, but light blue is the most likely. Note the contrasting dark V collar with the traditional three strips. There is a small sailor bow. These two brothers were the youngest in the family. Note how they are holding hands, they seem to have been very close friends to each other.

Reader Comments

A reader writes, "There is a scene in the film "Le Chateau de Ma Mere" and described in the book by Marcel Pagnol where the young Marcel and a peasant boy he meets on holiday in Provence get soaked in a rainstorm and Marcel's family lend the peasant boy ( Lili) an old sailor suit of Marcel's to change into - of which he is very proud, not having ever worn such clothes. The book ( Pagnol's biography) is set at the beginning of the 20th Century in Marseilles (where Pagnol lived with his family) and the surrounding countryside where they go on holiday. Sailor suits at the time were very commonly worn by French boys.

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Counter set: January 5, 2004
Last updated: January 5, 2004