Figure 1.-- The portrait here is undated, but we believe it was taken in the 1880s. Note that is a very plain suit with no detailing. You even have to look closely to identify it as a sailor suit. The boyv is wearing his sailor suit with a non-uniform hat. Here note the feather which was also commonly worn with Alpine caps and lederhosen. The portrait is a CDV taken by Alois Beer in Klagenfurt, Austria.

HBC knows little about the history of the sailor suit in Austria. No information on the chronology of Austrian sailor suits available yet as we have relatively few Austrian images. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had a small navy based in Italian ports. The Empire controlled Venice and areas of northern Italy. The popularity of the sailor suit may have come more from the German fashion influence than the emulation of the Austrian Navy. The earliest Austrian image we have comes from the 1880s. we believe that sailor suits were worn earlier, but we just have so few austrian images that we do not have any earlier example. A factor here must have been the popularity of the sailor suit among Austrian royalty. A good example is the family of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne until he was assasinated (1914). We note one unidentified Austrian boy wearing a standard white middy blouse in 1912. The unidentified portrait of the Austrian boy here is undated, but we would guess the 1910s or the very early 1920s (figure 1). We are unsure how the popularity of the sailor suit was affected by World War I and the fall of the monarchy. After the NAZI Anchlus (1938) the sailor suit rapidly disapeared.

The 19th Century

We are not sure when Austrian boys began wearing sailor suits. Austri is a very snll vountry, lthough it had a huge empire in Central and Eastern Europe. As a result, the phoyigrohic record is linited compared o the other Europeab powers. Austrian photographic images from the 1840s and 50s are rare and we have a realtively small archive. What the royal family did strongly influenced fashion in Prussia and than Germany invluding Austria. As best can tell POrince Rudolf (1858-89) dud not wear sailor suits. It was an English fashion. We suspect that it was Prince Wilhelm in Prussdias that was the first boy in the German speaking workd to wear a sailor suit (1863). At least the first boy in a position to set the fashion. We noy=tice Austrian nobility wearing sailor sduits, but the inluence may have been foreign wives. While we do not yet have details as to just ewhen the sailor duit becsme importnt, ewe do know thst by the end iof the century it was one of the most populsr dtyle for Austrain boys uth the fmilisar stripe detailing. .

The 20th Century

Sailor suits were one of the most popular outfits for Austrian boys in the first half of the 20th century. They were widely woirn by Austriuan royals and thotougly adopted by the middle-clas. Sailor suits were less common in rural areas. We see a range of different styles in the early decades, but after World War I (1914-18), traditional styles becme increasingly common. We note boys wearing different kinds of pants with sailor suits, including bloomer knickjers, knee pants, short pants, and long pants. The choice od panbts was in part chronological. The Boys wore sailor suits into their early teens. We alsao notice girls wearing them. We note both white and blue suits. White blouses and dak pants were more common than the all white suits. The all dark suits were very common for fall and winter. While sailor continued to be popular after World War I, this was not the case after World War II. We rarely see boys wearing them fter the War in the late 1940s.

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Created: 5:39 PM 9/9/2004
Last updated: 9:50 PM 7/16/2021