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The sailor suit, beginning Beginning in the 1880s began to emerge as one of the most popular outfits for boys. While some mothers preferred fancier outfits like Little Lord Fauntleroy suits, the sailor suit had the advantage that boys, especilly during this era actually liked them.
It is not entirely clear to me why it was during the 1880s that sailor suits emerged as such a popular style after being so little use for several decades. I can at this time only offer a few possibilities:
A new generation of royals was dressed in sailor suits and advances in publishing and reproducing images made it much easier for the general public to follow royal dress. Victoria's grand children wore sailor suits, but her great grand children, especially the children of George VI in the 1890s, wore virtually nothing but sailor suits. And they were expected to wear them properly. A kerchief out of place
or hands in the pocker would ear a stiff royal rebuke. In fact the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII complained that the pockets in his sailor pants were sewn up because he kept putting his hands in his pockets.
Vast improvements in naval engineering were being achieved in the late 19th century. Ships were being armored and steam engines were repacing sails. Other countries were building powerful navies, including the America, newly united Germany and America, and France. It was in the 1880s as sailor suits emerged as popular boys wear in these countries. This appears to have affected the popularity in England, especially given the fact that the royal children wore them.
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Sailor suits in the late Victorian era were often quite accurate copies of Royal Navy uniforms. Sailor sduits by the turn of the century had begun to become more fanciful, especially as they were worn by increasingly younger boys. The suits worn in the late-19th century, however, were quite faithful reporoductions of actual Royal Navy uniforms. The English helped set the principle that a boys' sailir suit was an enlisted man's uniform, not an officers' uniform. As a result future kings of England not to mention Czars' of Russia would wear as boys enlisted uniforms.
Boys wore a variery of hair styles with sailor suits. Some boys wore long hair, alhough rtingle cirls were not as common as in America. Some families dressed all the boys in sailor suits, but differentiated the ages by the boys' hair styles.
The original sailor suits, like the uniforms worn by English sailors, had long bell bottom trousers. Gradually as boys began wearing knee pnts in the 1860s, knee pants sailor suits appeared. English boys wore sailor suits with both kneepants and long pants. I believe boys also wore bloomer knickers with sailor suits. I am not sure which was more common, but I think knee pants became increasingly common in the 1880s. While royal children and perhaps children from titled families might wear the suits with long bell-bottomed trousers like the Prince of Wales in the famous Winterhalter painting, I think ordinary boys, however, were increasingly wearing kneepants suits. Most of the images we have seen show boys wearing long stocks with knee pants sailor suits, but I believe socks were alo worn during the summer.
While the sailor suit was worn by relatively old boys in some countries, particularly Germany, this does not appear to have been the case in England. Wenote quite a few photographs of younger boys wearing sailor suits. good example is one boy wearing a white sailor suit in 1893. The sailor suit was not commonly worn buy boys older than about 8 years of age. I believe this was primarily because in the late 19th Century the educational system was becoming more standardized. Preparatory schools educating boys for Public schools (exclusive private
schools) had become established. Increasingly these schools were standarfizing their program which called for boys to begin at about age 8. These schools
had their own uniforms, so boys began putting their sailor suits away for suits with Eton collars. Of course this as the
more affluent boys. But the styles they adopted were then copied by less affluent mothers for their children
I am not positive about the conventions, but I believe that in affluent families that the sailor suit was often used for everyday wear. A boy might have a kilt outfit or Fauntleroy suit for his party suit. In
lessaffluent families, a sailor suit might have to make do for the boys party suit. Some boys might have more than one sailor suit. One for everyday wear wear and another for more formal occasions. This is the
situation, for example, described for the Shepard brothers. Notice how the drawings by Shepard are similar to
the sailor suits worn by the two brothers above, down to the sailor cap the one boy is holding.
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