Figure 1.--Here we see two Russian brothers wearing matching white sailor suits in the early 20th century. The portrait is undated, but may have been taken about 1905.

Sailor suits seem very popular in Tsarist Russia. Here the Tsarevitch certainly helped popularize the style, but he probably wore sailor suits because they were such a popular style. And of course all his cousins in Britain, Denmark, and Germany also wore sailor suits. Here we see two Russian brothers wearing matching white sailor suits in the early 20th century (1905). The portrait is undated, but may have been taken about 1905. Another good example is a portrait of three boys, probably brothers. A probablywith these and other such portaits is that they are not dates. They were likely taken in the 1900s, but there is no way to be sure tht they were not taken in the early 1910s. The sailor suit was clearly not just for the royal family and wealthy elite. We see uite a few portaits of Russian boys wearing sailor suits. We do think it was largely a style worn by the wealthy and prosperous middle-class. As far as we can tell it was not a working-class style, but as our archive of portraits includes few workers families, this is not something we can demonstrate at this time. We see both dark and white sailor suits. The styles seem to be traditional. We do not note the variety of styles that were common in Germany.

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Created: 4:09 AM 4/8/2006
Last updated: 3:33 PM 10/28/2006