Figure 1.--This CDV portrait shows an unidentified Englih boy who loks to be about 6 years old. He is apparently on a beach holiday with his family and mother wanted a portrait taken. The sailor suit was apopular outfit for beach holidays. He holds a fishing net and pond yacht. He wear a typical 1870s sailor suit with fashionable styling. The seems to be wearing a velvet sailor suit with satin or silk trim. Wearev not sure about the colors. He has a vest or dickyn that looks like a vest, white collar, and two bows. The pants hace a wide stripe done in the same material as the blouse trim. The long stockings seem to match the blouse trim. The portait was taken at the Henry Knight studio in St. Leonardson-Sea in Sussex. St Leonards is a beach resort near Hastings.

The basic sailor suit consisted of a blouse and usually matching pants. Othergarments were worn, but were not part of the suit. We are not sure about headwear, but it was usually bought separately. We think boater-style hats were worn. There were also rounded-crown hats of various descriptions. We are not yet sure about caps. Unfortunately, most of the available studio portrais do not not include the headwear. There are variously styled blouses. Most of the often destinctive styling was on the blouse. We see a lot of V-front blouses, but this style was not always used, especially in the early-70s. And we see a lot of boys who instead of a dickey seem to be wearing some sort of shirt ot vest underneath. We continue to see the boys wearing both knee pants and long trousers. While the sailor suits by the 1870s were also worn with knee pants, they were also widely available in long pants. By the 1870s the sailor suit was a style younger boys might commonly wear with long pants as knee pants were becoming more popular. Often the stling used for the blouse was continued on the pants. We see a lot of vertical stripes on the pants, sometimes quite wide stripes. The hosiery and shoes were not part of the suit. Mothers seem to have often coordinated cplors when chosing the hosiery. We mostly see long stockings. We see some boys wearing socks by the end of the decade. A lot of the boys were low-cut shoes. American boys at the time mostly wore high-top shoes.

Other Related HBC Pages:
[Sailor suits] [Kilts] [Smocks] [Pinafores] [Sailor Hats] [Blouses]
[Ring Bearers] [Long hair] [Ringlet curls] [Hair bows] [Bangs] [Collars] [Bows]

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Created: 2:53 AM 12/16/2012
Last updated: 2:47 AM 4/1/2017