Figure 1.--Here we see a brown World War I era button-on sailor suit. We only have the shirt and not the pants that went with it. I believe this would have been considered a play suit. Click on the images for a better view of the buttons.

Here we see a brown button-on sailor suit from the World war I era. We usually think of sailor suits as white or blue. These were certainly the most common. We note, however, many other colors. In particular during the early 20th century there were suits made in various drab colors like grey and brown. These were play suits and the colors did not show dirt like a white suit did. This looks to be a World War I vintage child's wool sailor shirt. We date it gto the World War I era both because of the style of the rank emlem and the use of the brownish color. (This was an army color and as far as I know not actually used by the Navy. It is a brown tweedy light wool shirt with black braid trim around the sailor collar and front piece. The size is 13" long, 10" long underarm seam length and 29" at the waist. The 29" waist measurement seems large for the age of the boys wearing this outfit. (We are going by the source.) We would say that 20" seems more reasinable. I'm not sure about the age of the boy that would fit this suit, perhaps a 3-year old. There are buttons at the waist front and back to attach the matching pants (figure 1). Click on the image for a better view of the waist buttons. This sailor suit didn't have the traditional "V" front, but there was a back flap with matching braid work (figure 2). The flap seems rather small compared to some we have seen. There almost certainly were matching pants to button on to the shirt. I'm not sure as to what kind of pants. They could have been either short or long pants. I think short pants or knee pants were more common in the button-on style, but this looks like a Fall-Winter seasonal suit given the material. I'm also not sure if it came with a cap. We have a photograph of two brothers wearing similar button-on sailor suits.

Figure 2.--Here we see the back of the sailor suit. Note the buttons and back flap.

Created: 7:39 PM 2/6/2005
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