Figure 1.--Here we see two brothers wearing sailor suits, probably in the 1910s. They wear student caps rather than sailor headwear with their sailor suits. The boys were from Bad-Gottleub.

German boys commonly wore sailor hats or caps with sailor suits. There were a range of different styles. Boys did not, always, wear sailor headwear with sailor suits. We have notied boys wearing different types of headwear--usually caps. The most important non-sailor caps we have noticed is peacked student caps. This was especially common in the early 20th century. They look rather like an army cap, perhaps they evolved from caps worn by military cadets. They were very widely worn by German boys. Sailor suits were just one of the outfits they were worn with. We have seen boys wearing these student caps with just about every suit style. We have noted German boys wearing a variety of other headwear with sailor suits, but these other non-sailor styles were not very common.

Peaked Student Caps

The most important non-sailor caps we have noticed is peacked student caps. here was no association with the sailor cap, they were simoly two popular styles. This was especially common in the early 20th century. We see large numbers of German boys wearing them with sailor suits as well as other outfits. They look rather like an army cap, perhaps they evolved from caps worn by military cadets. They were very widely worn by German boys. Sailor suits were just one of the outfits they were worn with. We have seen boys wearing these student caps with just about every suit style of boys' clothes. German boys did not wear school uniforms. Many schools did have, however, school caps with colored bands. This was partiularly common for secondary schools. Many primary-age children also wore these caps, although not requied by the schools.

Berets

Tams

We see a few German boys wearing tams with sailor suits. Again there was no connection between the two garments. The boys we note wearing sailor suits with tams are younger boys. We see boys wearing berets wih sailor suits, but tams were much less common. They also wear tams with other outfits. As best we can tell this was a pre-school style. We do not see boys wearing tams with sailor suits even for their first school day portraits. The images we have found seem to be from the early 20th century. We think tams may have been more of a girls' item, but we are not sure just how common tams were with girls in Germany.

Other Headwear

We have noted German boys wearing a variety of other headwear with sailor suits, but these other non-sailor styles were not very common. One style of headwear we note was what looks like some kind of cloth ties as a head covering. We do not know much about it. This head cloth has a kind of ethnic look to it. Hopefully our German readers will know more. An example is an unidentified Berlin boy about 1905.

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Created: 9:28 PM 3/5/2006
Last updated: 8:22 PM 6/1/2008