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The sailor hats worn in Germany seem quite similar to those worn in other European countries and America. Sailor hats were especially popular in the late-19th century. German boys in th late 19th and early 20th century wore a variety of sailor hats. The straw hats we see first or more like boaters with fairly narrow brims. Wide-brimmed hats had becom quite popular by the 1890s. Wide-brimmed sailor hats were especially popular. They were normally straw hats. Most were light colored straw hat. We note some with complex weaving patterns with different colors of straw. We note sailor hats done with varying brim widths. Many were made with streamers. This is, however, difficult to observe. Not only are most portraits were full frontal shots and the back streamer is obscured, but the hat was also positioned slanted up so you often canot even see the crown. We have seen these hats worns by boys of a wide range age, even younger teenagers. Much more common, however, were to see younger boys wearing these hats. Several images of German boys wearing broad-brimmed sailor hats are atrchived on HBC. A good example is an unidentified German boy. They were also worn by girls. Brimmed sailor hats were worn with other garments besides sailor suits.
The sailor hats worn in Germany seem quite similar to those worn in other European countries and America. We see sailor hats as soon as the Royal family adopted the British convention of drssing the princes in sailor suits. This occurred almost autmatically as the Crown Prince marries Princess Victoria, the Brotish princess royal. As far as we know, Prince Wilhem was the first Germany boy to wear a sailor outfit (1860s). At least he is the first we know about wearing sailor outfits. There may have been others. Sailor hats were especially popular in Germant the late-19th century. This was especially the case as Germany began to build a Highseas Fleet. German boys in the late 19th and early 20th century wore a variety of sailor hats.
There were many elements to sailor hats. The most important were the crown and brim. The crown could be flat or round or many variants in beteen. The brim could range from wide to narrow and many variants in between. Some were fairly flar while others were turnd up or down. Other variants included tallies and streamers, chin straps, and weaving. Thus the various elements meant that these hats were virtually endlesly varies whch we see in the photographic record. We have just begin to explore these many differnt elements and the major variants.
The most destinctive feature of a sailor hat was the brim. This was especially the case for a wide-brimmed hat. We note sailor hats done with varying brim widths. The mist striking ones were the wide-brimmed hsats. Smsaller boys seem lmost lost in them. There were also sailor hats with both small and bedium brims. The straw hats we see first in the 19th century are more like boaters with fairly narrow brims. Wide-brimmed hats became quite popular by the 1890s. At first we see more of these hsats than sailor caps. Wide-brimmed sailor hats were especially popular for younger boys. Several images of German boys wearing broad-brimmed sailor hats are atrchived on HBC. A good example is an unidentified German boy. Wide brimmed hats seem today rather a decorative rather than a practical headwear style. There was, however, a practical aspect to them. Light complexions were considered more attractive at the time. Thus for children a wide-brimmed sailor hat was a kind of early sun-safe garment.
The other major element of sailor hays was the crown. Sailor hats were made with both flat and rounded crowns. There were also a range of crowns made with gradiations in between. Given the way the hats were often phogtographed, we unfortunately do not often see much of the crown. Mothers liked the hats in the portraits, but did not want the boys' face hand hair style to be comoletely covered up. This is why the hats are mostly positioned proped up at an angle. It should not be assumed that this is how the gats were actully worn. Thus at this time we can not assess just what the most common style for German boys, but hope to e able to do so as HBC develops. We also are not sure if there were gender variations.
Many sailor hats were made with decorative hat bands or tallies and streamers. We know more about the cap tallies than the hat tallies. The tallies wete normlly black, but there were other colors. The tallies sometimnes with gold lettering. This seems to have been more common on sailor caps than on the hats. The tallies might gave ship names or the names ofGerman states and cities. The streamers were also normally black. While most German sailor hats the bands/tallies, not all had streamers. This is a little difficult to assess because the streamers in available portraits are often difficult to observe. Most portraits were full frontal shots and the back streamer was thus obscured. In addition, mothers and photographers commonly positioned the hat slanted up so the boy's face and hair are visible, but this mean that the crown with the hat band and streamer cnnot be seen. Often the best views we get of sailor hats is when they are placed off to the side and not sactually worn.
We know very little about sailor hat chin straps, but believe that they were very common. We think most German sailor hats came with chin straps. Many may have been elasticized. We are not entirely sure about sailor hats having chin straps, but believe that it was very common at laeast for sailor gats. We do not seem them being used with sailor hats. In the available portraits the boys do not seem to be commonly using the chin straps with their sailor hats. In many images we can not tell. It is not clear, for example, if the boy here is wearing a chin strap with his sailor hat (figure 1). Even so, the photographic record is so extensive that there are plenty of portarits that focus on the head and shoulder area that is quite clear that the children were not commonly using the chin straps. We think that they were folded inside the head band. This of course needs to be confirmed. They of course were not needed for the inside studio photo shoot. Photograpers and mothers may have seen them as rather marring the image. We think they were more likely to be used outside, especially on windy days. Many of the hats were so large that a wind would have caught them and sent them flying. The chin strap could also be used to slide the cap back off the head and wear it behind the neck. I'm not sure if the boys liked wearing the chin straps. We have not seen chin straps discussed in the literature. All we have to go on at this time is the photographic record.
We notice that the weaving in most of the broad-brimmed sailor hats was dairly standard with straw of the same color. This was the case in America. We see more variety in Germany. We see quite a few German hats with colored straw woven in. We mostly see this with the broad-brimmed hats. We are not sure about the colors, but we notie dark colors. Lighter colors may have been less noticeable. For the most part this seems to have been primarily just to introduce a little color or to make the hats a more stylish. We have, however, seen a few hats in which the colord straw in use to create recognizeable patterns, like circles, flowers, and fruits. This does not seem to have been very common and we assumewas expensive. Introducing colored straw in a more random pattern seems to Have been much more vommon. Many of these colored straw weaving at we have found so far seem to date to the 1890s and 1900s. The examples we have found seem to be more boys than girls, but our rchiv is still limited. Girls of course like women were more prone to decorate their hats in individual ways with among other things, fruits and flowers. Boys never decorated their hats, although one can never rule out what mothers may have done when dressing younger boys.
Boys in many of the available portraits seem to be wearing sailor hats set back on their heads often with the underside of the brim showing. This was done so that the boy's face and hair was vissible in the portraits. The portrait here is a good example (figure 1). We don't think boys normally wore them like that, in part because they would tend to blow off if it was windy. But this is a little difficult to tell because the vast proprtion of the photographic record is studio portraiture.
Sailor hats were normally straw hats. Most were light colored straw hat. We note some with complex weaving patterns with different colors of straw. The hat the boy here is wearing is a good ecample (figure 1).
We have seen these hats worn by boys of a wide range of ages, mostly pre-teens. The younger boys were the most likely to wear sailor hats, as least this is suggested by the photographic record which when these hats were popular was mostly during the 19th and very early-20th century. Boys might wear these hats even before thgey were breeched and began wearing sailir suits. Some 2 year ols may have worn them with dressess and they were fairly common with pre-school boys. Our assessment is primarily based on the photographic record. Perhaps older boys were less likely to wear the hats for their studio portraits. This we can not confirm. At least we see fewer older boys wearing sailor hats, especially the wide-brimmed hats. Intrestingly, for some reason, the younger the boy the larger the hat. Here we suspect that mothers simply had more sway over the clothes of the younger boys. We see pre-school and early-primary boys wearing sailor hats with very wide brims. Some younger teens wore sailor suits, but not commonly with sailor hats. Amlost all of the images we have found with teenagers wearing sailor suits, if they had sailor headwear, it was caps rather than hats. Much more common, however, were to see younger boys wearing these hats--especially the wide-brimmed hats. This is clearly shown in the substantial photographic record. Unfortnately, the headwear is not included in many of the portraits we have found of German boys wearing sailor suits.
Sailor hsats were were also worn by girls. The style for boys and girls were identical although girls often had more decoratd hats. We belive that the photographic record may be less helpful in assessing girls' hats. We supect mothrs were less willing to cover up girls' hair wuth hats for the studio portraits..
Brimmed sailor hats are most associated with sailor outfits for both boys and girls. They were, however, worn with other garments besides sailor suits.
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