Figure 1.--This unidentified Ohio boy wears a knee pants sailor suit with elbirate detiling. Sailor suits are known for stripes, but in the the 1870s, mothers went stripe happy. The stripes pper evrywhere abnd not just on the V-collar. Notice the stripes on the pants as well. This was characteristic of the 1870s, although this looks like the late-1870s. Notice the boy's sailor hat. Shaved heads were not unkown in America, but were less common than in Europe. The studio was O.F. Fellison in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We note quite a range of sailor detailing when sailor suits begin to become more common in the 1870s. It was a new style and thus mothers used a lot of imagination about what a sailor suit should look like. Ready made clothing wa just beginning to becoe important. We believe that some of the suits we see were home sewn or ewn by individual seamstesses. We can not, however, quntify this. We do see ready-made suits offered in department stores. We do not see many suits with what we would now call traditional styling, but we we do see stripes being used in various ways in almost all of the sailor suits. We do see tree-stripe detailing, but this was just one of the various ways that stripes were used. Sailor suits are known for stripes, but in the the 1870s, mothers went stripe happy. The stripes apper evrywhere abnd not just on the V-collar. Notice the stripes on the pants as well. This was characteristic of the 1870s. The Ohio biy here ius a good example (figure 1). We also notice detaiking using one and two stripe. The striping was often much more extensive and much bolder than we see subsequently on sailor suits. A good example is John Geiger, we think in early 1870s. Note the 'V'-collar was not yet standard, but we see quite a few of them . Many suits even had the stripes on the pants as well. This is something tht we do not see after the 70s. Stripes were very common and often very bold. Many outfits were done two- rather than three-stripe detailing. The stripe detailing came from actual naval unifiorms, but they wee not done to replicate actual Royal Navy uniforms.

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Created: 2:56 AM 7/7/2012
Last updated: 1:09 PM 5/24/2023