Figure 1.--Here we see two unidentified siblings. The older child is a boy, perhsps 5 years old. We are not sure if the younger child is a boy or girl. They wear identical traditionally styled sailor outfits, sailor suits with blouses and skirts. We are not sure about the country, but think they are European.

The most common sailor suits were sailor blouses with pants or skirts. We would tend to classify children as wearing identical sailor suits even with the girls wearing skirts and the boys pants. This was fairly common and the children wearing wearing the same blouses. In the 19th century the younger boys might also wear skirts. This varied from fmly to family, but some boys were nor breeched until they approsched school age. This was, however, not very common with sailor outfits. Many younger boys wore shoirted garments, but not so many as part of sailor outfits. More commonly we see younger boys being dressed in pants for sailor suits at an age where they still might not be breeched. We do, however, see some examples. Sailor suits, of course were not the the only sailor outfits. There were different types of sailor suits such as jacket suits, but they were not commonly worn by girls. Girls also wore sailor dresses, but it was the blouse and pants/skirts suit that were most commonly used when dressing the family in sailor outfits. This was because it was the style of sailor outfit that did not have gender connotations--sailor suits were very popular commnly worn by both boys and girls. We see some families with children wearing different sailkor outfiuts, but more common was the sailor blouse and pants/skirt outfits.

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web sailor pages:
[Middy blouse] [Reefer jackets] [Sailor dresses] [Other sailor styles] [Sailor hats]
[Middy suits] [National sailor suits] [The Royals] [Ring bearer/page costumes]

Created: 3:37 PM 8/30/2018
Last updated: 3:37 PM 8/30/2018