Figure 1.--This unidetified British boy looks to be about 6-years old and was photographed with the family pooch. He wears what looks like a sailor blouse with a squarish rather than a V-shaped collar. It might be a plain white blouse with whay mau be a simle unattahed sailor overlay. Unfortunately it is not a real clear image, apparently an attmpt at an oval presentation. We at first thought this was a tintype, but it is a postcard back portrait. The half-penny stamp box suggests it was taken during or before 1916. We think the style of strap shoes suggests the 1910s rather than 1900s.
We see several variations on the traditional V-front sailor collar. While the V-front collar was the central feature in the vast majotity of sailor blouses, hiwever, it was not always employed. We see small number of other styles. Here we see a sailor blouse with a sqaured off collar and only a small "V' -- usually the major feature of a sailor collar (figure 1). Other styles dispensed with he V-collar all together. Some times mothers added a new white collar in additioin to the squared-away collar. A good example is the Mosley boy in 1895. Even without the key attribute of the V-front sailor styling was often achieved by stripe detailing. We notice various collar configurations. We see a square or squarish collar, meaning the outer perimeter. In some cases with the empty interior V space as created by the standard V-collar. The unidentified boy here is a good example. These suits may have blouses with standard pointed collars. We see these styles in America, but are less sure to what extent they were found in England. We have found a few examples. Note that even with the blouse styles done without the V-collar, there is often the back flap associated with the V-collar. We see the style variants in both the 19th and 20th centuries. We note large regular pointed shirt collars, some times with emnbrofdered anchors or stars around the turn of the 20th century. Mostly we nitived this style in America. We akso motice stripes. We are still looking for English examoles. Some of the blouses were strioed to add to the sailot look.
We notice what looks like a kind of wrap around the shoulders with a string tie at the front. It looks kike it was not part of the blouse, but just layed on too of it and tied together. Some were wirn under Eron collars. We are not sure what to call this, but we believe it would have been seen as a kind of sailor style at the time. We don't see many examples of this, but we do see some. We have not noticed them in American and other countrues, only England.
Squared Collars
Here we see a sailor blouse with a sqaured off collar and only a small "V' -- usually the major feature of a sailor collar (figure 1). Other styles dispensed with he V-collar all together. Some times mothers added a whole new whire collar in addition to the squared away collar. A good example is the Mosley boy in 1895. Even without the key attribute of the V-front sailor styling was often achieved by stripe detailing. We notice various collar configurations. We see a square or squarish collar, meaning the outer perimeter. In some cases with the empty interior V space as created by the standard V-collar. The unidentified boy here is a good example. These suits may have blouses with standard pointed collars. We see these styles in America, but are less sure to what extent they were found in England. We have found a few examples. Note that even with the blouse styles done without the V-collar, there is often the back flap associated with the V-collar. We see the style variants in both the 19th and 20th centuries.
Regular Pointed Collars
We note large regular pointed shirt collars, some times with emnbrofdered anchors or stars around the turn of the 20th century. Mostly we nitived this style in America. We akso motice stripes. We are still looking for English examoles. Some of the blouses were strioed to add to the sailot look.
We notice what looks like a kind of wrap around the shoulders with a string tie at the front. It looks like it was not part of the blouse, but just layed on too of it and tied together. Some were wirn under Eron collars. We are not sure what to call this, but we believe it would have been seen as a kind of sailor style at the time. We don't see many examples of this, but we do see some. We have not boticed them in American and other countrues, only England. We are guessing that they were mostly blue, but of course this is impossible to deternine with black-and-white photography. Er bare not sure aboit the conventioins, nut we think this would be seen as a kind of dressy touch when not wearing a jacket. We doubt if it was worn to school.
