Figure 1.--The two Soviet children wear matching white sailorsuits that look to be part of some sort of official uniform. Note the red stars on their middly blouses. This is marine uniform from Pioneer Artek camp in 1937. The older girl is the Pioneer leader.

We know that Russian boys wore sailor suits in the 19th century. We suspect that the pattern was somewhat similar to Germany. Connections with the Danish royal family were factors here. We see sailor suits being worn in the Tsar's family, but we are unsure how common they were with the public at large. We know more about the 20th century. Sailor suits were worn both before and after the Revolution. Sailor suits seem very popular in Tsarist Russia. Here the Tsarevitch certainly helped popularize the style. We thought that because the sailor suit was so connected with the Tsar's family and the middle class that the sailor suit would have disappeared after the Revolution, but this was not the case. We see quite a number of Soviet boys wearing sailor suits.

The 19th Century

We know that Russian boys wore sailor suits in the 19th century. We suspect that the pattern was somewhat similar to Germany. Connections with the Danish royal family were factors here. We see sailor suits being worn in the Tsar's family and aristocratic families. And not just occassionally, we see them wearing sailor suits as standard every day dress. We are unsure how common they were with the public at large. We suspect that the style became very well accepted by the middle- and upper-classes. The working class is another matter. In the restr of Europe, sailor suits were less common among the working class. We suspect this was the case in Russia as well. We are not sure just why this was. Cost may have been a factor, but we suspect that more was involved. In most European countries, the styles set by royal failies strongly influenced popular middle-class styles. This was the case in many European countries. Our 19th century Russian archive, however, is not very large and we can not yet assess how popular the sailor suit was in Russia during the century. Of course this was only after mid-century when the style was introduced and popularized by the British royal family. We see substantial numbers of Russian boys wearing sailor suits in the photographic record.

The 20th Century

We know more about Russian sailor suits in the the 20th century. Sailor suits were worn both before and after the Revolution. Sailor suits seem very popular in Tsarist Russia. Here the Tsarevitch must have helped popularize the style. We thought that because the sailor suit was so connected with the Tsar's family and the middle class that the sailor suit would have disappeared after the Revolution, but this was not the case. We see quite a number of Soviet boys wearing sailor suits. We are not entirely sure how this would have been preceived. In the rest of Europe, the sailor suit had amiddle-class image which also would have not be a positive in Russia. We think the sailor suit was especially popular with the educted elite in urban areas. Also we think that most sailor suits would have been sewn by mothers and were probaby difficult to find in stores.

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Created: September 22, 2003
Last updated: 10:52 PM 12/2/2022