Figure 1.--No miliary uniform has had more impact on children's clothes than sailor suits. The suits commonly worn in each country were based on the contemporary style of the national navies. This tennage boy has just entered the English Navy at about the turn of the century.

Military uniforms have had an important impact on boys clothes. Often there were differences between what the parents, especially the mother, wanted their sons to wear and what the boys themselves wanted to wear. The use of military styles for boys appears to have bridged that gap, at least until the mid-20th century when sailor suits became associated with very young children or even girls--making them unacceptable to most boys.

Service Styles

The two basic types of uniforms have been army and nval uniforms. The different army units (cavalry, grebnadiers, artillery, infantry, etc.) might have quite differently styled uniforms. Modern Air Force uniforms are generally quite similar to army styles.

Naval uniforms

The most important military-style uniform, of course, was the sailor suit and sailor hat popularized by Queen Victoria when she began dressing the young princes in them during the mid-19th century. The designs for boys' sailor suits varied greatly, many employed knee pants or even skirts and others were veray fanciful. Most true sailor suits followed the uniform designs of the natiional navies.

Army uniforms

Army uniforms had much less influence on boys' style. I'm not sure why sailor suits were considered acceptable boys wear, but not army uniforms. Victoria did not dress the princes in army uniforms, but more than that must be involved. Boys did wear army uniforms at military schools and academies in Germany, Austria, and America. Fancy dressoutfits have sometimes used military themes. After the Civil War, brightly colored Zouave outfits with billowing bloomer pants or skirts for younger boys were very popular. Choir groups like the Vienna Choir Boys wore army uniforms before World War I. But clearly army uniforms had much less impact than naval uniforms. Some elements of uniforms, such as sashes have appeared on boys' outfits such as Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. Some boys outfits also employed military-style buttons.

Uniform Trends

HBC thought that some basic information about military uniform trends might help to put some of the changes in boys' uniforms and eventually non-uniform fashions in perspective. There appear to have been inluences back and forth between military and civilian dress.