American Sailor Suit Garments: Non-sailor Headwear


Figure 1.--These American brothers wear matching sailor suits, but with peaked caps rather than sailor hedwear. The CYKO-back postcard portrait is undated, but we suspect was taken about 1910.

While boys are almost always depicted wearing sailor headwear with sailor suits, in real life boys this was not always the case. Boys did not always wear sailor headwear with their sailor suits. Headwear often did not come with the suits. This left mothers various options. They could buy and coordinate sailor headwear, they could buy headwear they liked better, or they could save money and have their sons wear headwear they already had. As a result, boys contrary to preconceptions did not always wear sailor headwear with their sailor suits. We in fact see a range of different headwear, both boaters and different kinds of caps. There were variations over time. This included both chaning fashions in heaswear and the fact that fewer boys were wearing caps and hats after World War I.

Boaters

Most hats worn by American boys with sailor suits were sailor-styled hats/. An exception was the boater. (Of course the boater has sailor origins.) We see some boys wearin boaters witn sailor suits. This was not very common as boaters were nostly worn by boys older than the sailor suit ran. We do not notice thids conination afer Wotld War I, although boaters were worn by teenagers and men in the 1920s.

Flat Caps

Sailor suits and flats caps were two very popular styles, but not all that commonly worn together. we also see a few boys wearing flat caps with sailor suits. This also was not very common, but flat caps and sailor suits were so common that we do see them worn together. This was usually not the sailor suits with the traditional detailing. The boys here tended to be younger school-age boys. Most of the examples come from the the early-20 century. At the time the sailor suit was becoming worn by increasingly younger boys and the flat cap was becoming increasingly popular. There was a age overlap. The older boys wearing sailor suits were some of the younger school-age boys wearing flat caps.

Peaked Caps

We see some boys wearing peaked caps with sailor suits. This was not a very common combination, but sailor suits and these caps were so popular around the rurn-of-the 20th century that we do see them being worn together. The images we have found seem to be primarily boys from affluent families that wore this combinatiuon. The portrait here is aood example (figure 1). At the time this was not the case for the two garments worn separately, but it does seem to be the case for the comnination. The peaked cap was associated with schools in Britain, but this was much less the case in America. Sone private schools did have these caps, but we also see boys attemnding public schoolls wearing them in the very early-20th century. Almost always this was a combinaion we note before World War I, Motly in the 1890s and 1900s, perhaps the early-1910s. We see sailor suits earlier. We also see peaked caps afterwards as well as sailor suits, but they were not worn together. The peaked cap after World War I became a kind of cap worn by boys from affluent families. They were worn by boys with suits or as part of private school uniforms.








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Created: 4:02 AM 10/25/2008
Last updated: 8:48 PM 3/19/2012