Figure 1.--Here we see three boys in Tsarist Russia during the early 20th century, all dressed in identuical velvet sailor suits. Their big sister wears a white dress. They all wear long stockings. The children look to be about 3-10 yeras old. The porttait is undated, but we think may have been taken in the 1890s.

The sailor suit was very popular before the Revolution. The Royal family was an important factor here, but German fashions were another factor. As a result, it is very common to see upper- and middle-class family portrits with children wearing sailor suits. This was mostly younger boys until they began attending schools with uniforms. This varied chronologically. We see some teenage boys in aristocratic families wearung sailor suits, but not many middle-class families. Girls tended to wear sailor outfits to an older age. We see all of this in family portraits. We see quite a few images were multiple children in families wearing sailor suits. This changed with the Revolutioin. Sailor suits comtinued to be popular at least during the inter-war era (1920s-30s), despite the middle-class image of the sailor suit. Middle-class origins could affect educatiinal opportunities anbd careers. While we continue to see individual boys wearing sailor suitrs, we see fewer families where multiples were done up in sailor suits. A factor here was that that there were fewer families with karge numbers of children.

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Created: 7:25 PM 6/10/2021
Last updated: 7:25 PM 6/10/2021