Figure 1.-- No one garment epitomized seaside resort clothing more than the sailor hat, done in various styles. Note this little English girl in 1910 also wears a dark pinafore. We thought at first this child was a boy, but the ruffled sleeve cuffs I think suggest a girl. |
Actually beachwear at the turn of the century did not mean just bathing suits. Children might dress quite formally even for the beach. Boys wore the same suits to the beach that they wore for every day. Linnen or other light-weight sailor suits were of course popular outfits for boys on excursions to the beach in the late 19th century. White suits or other light colors (especially pale blue), were especially popular. Of course they were worn with broad-brimmed sailor hats. Broad brimmed hats were especially important for children as they were for women. I am not precisely sure why children often were dressed in wide-brimmed hats. I am not sure that white complexions were quite so important for children, but still they were commonly dressed in broad-brimmed hats. Other suits such as Norfolk suits with stiff Eton collars were also common, often worn with knee pants or knickers and long wollen stockings. This might not sound like sensible beach wear to the modern reader, but don't forget that Victorian England was far removed from the war weather in sunny Florida. Thus English children might be on beach outings on cloddy days with rather cold water--even in July and August. (Take a good look at how far north England is on the map.) So the heavy suits might have felt quite nice. The stiff Eton collars, however, do seem a bit unreasonable--testifying to the more formal approach to dressing which lasted until World War II in America and even longer in England. The children would take off there long stockings to go wadeing and digging on the beach and shallow water. Older children might build sand castles. Younger children might persue less ambitious projects.
One might think smocks would be serviceable beachwear, but we have not noted them commonly being worn. We do, however, see the girls wearing pinafores.
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