Figure 1.--This unidentified American boy wears a sailor suit with a striped dickey. American boys did not normally wear fully striped dickies like some European boys. Note that American boys did have striped detailing matching their collars and ciffs on the dickies. The portrait is undated, but looks to have been taken in the 1910s. The boy wears white three-quater socks with black strap shoes. He looks to be about 6-7 years old. A reader writes,"I have more than 20 images with this same stuffed dog, and many of them were studio photos in the 1910s era. I also have one of the actual dogs. The long hair is goat hair, and the hairy goatskin is sewn directly to the straw-stuffed animal's head and tail. Some examples also have the hairy skin sewn all down its back."

Some sailor blouses had dickies with stripes. Striped dickies seem more popular in some European countries than the United States. American boys rarely wore the fully striped dickies like some European boys. The striped dickies most American boys wore had the collar/cuff stripe detailing repeated at the top of a basically plain dickey. This was only done at the top. We have never seen the striopes done in the middle. Almost always the color and style of stripes matched that on the collar. Three stripes were the most common, but thgere were other detiling styles. This also varied chronologically. We believe this became more popular in the 1910s. And we see this approach a lot after World War I. We note stri[pes were especially common in France and Russia. We rarely see them in America. To a certain extent this reflected the uniforms of the national navies. Often these striped garments were not really dickies, but striped 't'-shirts worn under the sailor blouse. It is a little difficult to tell, but we believe bold stripes were usually 't'-shirt rather than an actual dickey.

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Created: 12:38 PM 1/12/2012
Last updated: 12:38 PM 1/12/2012