Figure 1.--Here e see a St. Petersburg boy wearing a sailor suit. We are not sure when the photograph was taken, but would guess about 1900. Note the stripped dickey. It looks like a dicky rather than some kind of 't'-shirt. There is some writing on the back. It appears to be the boy' name. A reader writes, " If I'm reading it right, the hand writing on the back says !5@560 C@02J52 ( !5@359 8:>;0528G) which translates as Serezha Muravev ( Sergey Nikolayevich).

Sailor suits included headwear, jackets or middy blouses, and matching or contrasting pants. These were done in many different styles, but not so many as we see in the West, especially the United States. We see much more of the classic traditional styled suits. There were also coats such as reefer coats. There were a range of accessories, including dickeys, lanyards, buttons and other items. The boy here wears a standard middy blouse (figure 1). One destinctive feature of many Russian sailor suits was the hrizontally stripped dickey. I'm not sure what kind of garment this was, but I think it was like a "T"-shirt. Not all Russian boys had these stripped dickeys, but they were very common, in part because this was a common feature of the sailor suits chosen by the royal family.

Headwear

Blouses

Accessories

There were a range of accessories worn with sailor blouses, including dickeys, shoulder patches, lanyards, buttons, and other items. The most important is probably the dickey, pronavly called a shield. Stripped dickies were very common. The dickey the boy here is wearing a good example (figure 1). Perhaps this was because the striped dickies were often the choice of the Royal Family. There were also plain white dickies as well as dickies with embroidered naurical devices or royal morifs showing the association with the royal family. The dickies varied. Some were sewn on, others buttoned on. They could be removed for warm summer wear. The lanyard way more of a fancy optional item. The shoulder path was fairly common.

Jackets/Coats

Pants

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Created: September 22, 2003
Last updated: 6:51 AM 3/21/2008