American Girl Sailor Outfits: Chronology


Figure 1.--This unidentified girl with her baby brother seems pleased with herself. She looks to be about 1 years old. She has a huge white hair bow with we thonk a sailor dress. The dress has embroudered eagle designs with chevrons. These were more common with boys' suits. The AZO postcard (two triangls up) portrait date to 1904-18. We would guess it was taken about 1910. The studio is Rosselli in St. Louid Missouri.

We are still working out the chronology of American girls' sailor outfits. Here of course we are takking primarily about dresses and other skirted outfits. We do not see girls' sailor outfits at mid-19th century, at least we have not yet found evidence of them. Nor do we see them in the 1860s. We do finally begin to see see some girls' sailor dresses in the 1970s. And by the 1890s sailor outfits were widly popular for both boys and girls. This continued into the early-20th century. We note sailor outfits becoming much more popular for girls (1890s). And we begin to see girls wearing non-skirted garments, at first middy blouses with bloomers. This became the standad outfit for high-school gym classes (1900s). Sailor outfits, both sailor-styled dresses and sailor suits were very popular for girls schoolwear in the first half of the 20th century. The styling by the turn-of-the century was almost entirely very tradituonal. We see girls of all ages wearing sailor outfits, especially middy blouses and skirts, but we see dresses as well. This included older teenagers in high school. This continued into the inter-war era. After world War II we see only younger primary-age girls wearing sailor dresses. But unlike for the boys, sailor styled outfit never disappeard for the girls We see them appearing in various manifestions. Dresses began to decline in poulatity in the late-20th century which is in part why the style became increasingly less prevalent.






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Created: 12:40 AM 1/20/2014
Last updated: 12:40 AM 1/20/2014