German Sailor Suits: Unidentified Boy (about 1905)


Figure 1.-- Here we have an unidentified German boy wearing a sailor suit. We know nothing about the boy except he is German. The studio mount had the street address, but no city. This proably means the portrait is was taken in Berlin. The photographer probably thought it was unecessary to indicate the city. The boy has a basically traditional sailor suit, although the "v" collar is white. The portrait is unusual because of the headwear. I am not sure just what he is wearing on his head. It gives the portrait an ethnic look.

Here we have an unidentified German boy wearing a sailor suit. We know nothing about the boy except he is German. The studio mount had the street address, but no city. This proably means the portrait is was taken in Berlin. The photographer probably thought it was unecessary to indicate the city. The portrait is undated, but we would guess it was taken about 1905-10. The boy has a basically traditional sailor suit, although the "v" collar is white withblue stripes. This was not very common for blue suits. The portrait is unusual because of the headwear. I am not sure just what he is wearing on his head. It gives the portrait an ethnic look. Also note the floppy bow mother has added. We note some American boys with bows added to theirsailor suits, Ths seems less common in Germany. Thebow seems to have a pattern. His sailor suit has knickers rather than the more usual knee pants. Most all the images we have archived sho boys wearing knee or short pants sailor suits and sometimes long pants. Knickers were much less common.

The Boy

Here we have an unidentified German boy wearing a sailor suit. We know nothing about the boy except he is German. Nor do we know anything about his family. The smart sailor suit, of course, suggests a middle class family, but we don't quite know what to make of the headwear.

Location

The studio mount had the street address (Chausseestraße), but no city. This may mean the portrait was taken in Berlin. The photographer may have thought it was unecessary to indicate the city. We are guessing here. Our thought process was that Berlin was so large and important that photographers didn't think that indicating the city was necessary. A HBC reader knowledgeable about German photography, however, tells us, "I do not think that failure to identify the town automaticly indicates a Berlin portrait. Yes, there is a Chausseestraße in Berlin. But as the word Chaussee means Avenue this is not a rare street name." So the location is still in doubt.

Chronology

The portrait is undated, but we would guess it was taken about 1905-10.

Sailor Suit

The boy wears a basically traditional sailor suit, although the "v" collar is white with blue stripes. This was not very common for blue suits. Also note the floppy bow mother has added. We note some American boys with bows added to their sailor suits, Ths seems less common in Germany. Thebow seems to have a pattern. His sailor suit has knickers rather than the more usual knee pants. Most all the images we have archived sho boys wearing knee or short pants sailor suits and sometimes long pants. Knickers were much less common.

Headwear

The portrait is unusual because of the headwear. I am not sure just what he is wearing on his head. It looks loke some kind of heas scarfe. It gives the portrait an ethnic look. A German reader writes, "I am not sure what is on the boys head but to me it looks more like a cap than a scarf to me." Another reader writes, "I was looking at the picture of the boy in a sailor suit. I must admit, when I first caught sight of the picture, I immediately thought Gypsy. The headwear looks like the style of head scarf the gypsy's are well known for. I was talking to a Romany Gypsy in Penang (Malaysia) 2 years ago. He has lived in England all his life, but still fiercely hangs on to his gypsy heritage. He was telling me that Germany also has a strong line of Romany Gypsys." This is a possibility, but crisp sailor suits are the kind of clothing one would associate with Gypsys. We generally associate gypsies more with the Astro-Humgarian Empire than Germany, but Germany did have a Gypsey community. It was course desimated in the World War II Holocaust.






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Created: 7:44 PM 8/19/2006
Last updated: 9:45 AM 8/20/2006