Figure 1.--Ernest wore white or light-colored sailor suits during the summer. With his summer suit he usyually wore wide-brimmed sailor hats with a streamer.
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Figure 1.--Ernest wore white or light-colored sailor suits during the summer. With his summer suit he usyually wore wide-brimmed sailor hats with a streamer. |
One of the most delightful childhood memories of Victorian England is
Ernest Shepard's lovely book, Drawn From Memory. Shepard is the
artist who illustrated A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Shepard grew
up in London during the 1880s. He mostly wore sailor suits and hats as
a boy, although he had a Little Lord Fauntleroy parrty suit.
Ernest was born in 1879. His brother appears a couple years older.
Much of the book is set about
1886 when Ernest was about 7 years old.
Figure 4.--Ernest as a boy mostly wore sailor suits for everyday wear, a white suit for the summer and a heavier blue suit for the fall and winter. He had several different hats. Here he wears a soft cap with his winter sailor suit. |
Sailor suits were one of the most popular outfits
for Vuctorian boys. Popularized by Queen Victoria
who dressed the young princes in sailor suits, by the 1870s, sailor suits
were a must in virtually ever boy's wardrove. Ernest appears to have primarily worn sailor suits
for everyday wear. His brother Cyril, also presumably wore sailor suits
when he was Ernest's age.
The drawings suggest that Earnest wore classically tailored middy
blouses modeled on the uniforms of the British Navy.
Ernest had both white or light-colored sailor
suits for summer wear. I'm not sure what color symmer suits Ernesrt wore.
Both white suits and lihgt blue suits were popular. Dark blue suits
were worn for fall and winter.
All of his
sailor suits were worn with kneepants, always with long stockings. While
Ernest wore dresses with bare legs and ankle socks, he always wore long
stockings with his sailor suits, even during the summer. The Victorians did not think it
proper for boys to go bare legged. As little boys the boys wore dresses
with ankle socks, but never wore knee pants short socks.
Ernest, during the winter and fall, wore a
reefer jacket over his sailor suits.
Hats and caps for men and boys were much more common than is the case today. Victorians did not go out without the appropriate head gear. I'm not sure what kind of hats the boys wore while still in dresses. One drawing of the boys in a pram show Ernest, who was still wearing dresses. in a kind of wide-brimmed sailor hat. That is probably representative of the kind of hat he would have normally worn while still in dresses. I'm not sure what Ernest wore with his Fauntleroy, probably a broad-brimmed sailor hat. With his sailor suits he often wore wide-brimmed hats with streemers during the summer with his white suit. During the fall and winter, a soft cap was common with his heavy blue suits or reefer jackets.
Figure 5.--While Ernest mostly wore sailor suits and sailor hats, his older brother often wore Norfolk jackets, Eton collars, and peaked caps or boaters for dressier occasions. |
I'm not sure how long Earnest wore sailor suits. His older brother no longer
wore sailor suits, so presumably by 9 or 10, Earnest was also sporting
a Norfolk suit, Eton collar, and sraw boater instead of a sailor suit.
Shepard does not tell us what he thought of his sailor suits. I think
that means that he preferred his sailor suit. He does complain about the
lace collar he had to wear with his Fauntleroy suit. He also comments
critically on a Scottish outfit (kilt) that
another boy wore. The fact that he never mentions his sailor suit I think
means that he had no objected to it. Sailor suits were such an excepted boyish faction
by the 1880s that boys had no object to wearing them.