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The British royal family introduced the idea of boys wearing sailor suits when Prince Bertie had his portrait painted by Winterhalter wearing a Royal Navy sailor uniform in 1846. It seemed to make a real connection ith the British public, in port because a ratings uniform was chosen. Notice that Berie is wearing a sailor hat. As far as we know there were no sailor caps in use at the time. Actually uniforms for ratings (enlisted men) were not common at the time. The Admiralty did not establish a uniform for ratings until a decade earlier (1857). Actually the Winterhalter portrait n Prince Bertie probably promoted the uniform idea. Individual captains adopted uniforms before that, but in 1857 uniform regulations were adopted for the service. Gradually boys began wearing sailor caps as well. The initial inspiration was Royal Navy uniforms. We are not sure when the first caps appeared, probably when the first uniform was adopted or shortly after (1860s). Our 19th century English archive is limited so we do not yet have a good idea as to early styles. We believe they basically followed Royal Navy trends chrnologically and stylistically. This was just the case for caps. Ratings except at mid-century did not wear hats. The sailor hat became a child's garment. From an early point, only officers wore hats. We are not sure when boys begn wearing sailor caps. We think in the 1860s. We think it was soon after caps were introduced by the Admirlty for Royl Navy uniforms. There were many popular styles of sailor caps. The caps seem more diverse than the hats. The large number of sailor styles were in part due to the long period in which sailor fashions were popular for boys, about 100 years. There were sailor caps with flat tops, soft crowns, tams, stocking caps, and other styles. The styles usually followed the standard uniform styles of the Royal Navy, but some like tams were specifically for children. We note sailor caps almost always being worn with sailor suits. This sounds obvious, but in Europe we note sailor caps sometimes being worn with non-sailor caps. This probably did not occur because the peaked school cap was so commonly worn during much of the era in which sailor caps were worn. Sailor caps were mostly worn by boys. Girls wearing sailor dresses often wore hats.
The British royal family introduced the idea of boys wearing sailor suits when Prince Bertie had his portrait painted by Winterhalter wearing a Royal Navy sailor uniform in 1846. It seemed to make a real connection ith the British public, in port because a ratings uniform was chosen. Princess Victoria became queen at a time that increasing numbers of the British people had begun to see the monarchy as not only useless, but very expensive. And a poorly educated teenage girl seemed to be an unlikely person to turn that about (1837). But she and her young German husband did just that with intuitive steps like this. Notice that Bertie is wearing a sailor hat. As far as we know there were no sailor caps in use at the time.
Actually uniforms for ratings (enlisted men) were not common at the time. The Admiralty did not establish a uniform for ratings until a decade earlier (1857). Actually the Winterhalter portrait n Prince Bertie probably promoted the uniform idea. Individual captains adopted uniforms before that, but in 1857 uniform regulations were adopted for the service. Gradually boys began wearing sailor caps as well. The initial inspiration was Royal Navy uniforms.
We are not sure when the first caps appeared, probably when the first uniform was adopted or shortly after (1860s). Our 19th century English archive is limited so we do not yet have a good idea as to early styles. We believe they basically followed Royal Navy trends chrnologically and stylistically. This was just the case for caps. Ratings after mid-century did not wear hats. The sailor hat became a child's garment. At firt only officers wore hats. We are not sure when boys begn wearing sailor caps. We think in the 1860s. We think it was soon after caps were introduced by the Admirlty for Royal Navy uniforms.
Sailor outfits were also popular with the girls. The girls wearing sailor outfits dresses often wore hats. Sailor caps were mostly worn by the boys.
There were several popular styles of sailor caps. An even larger number of styles were worn with sailor sduits. Here we are just talking about sailor styled csps. We note caps based on Royal Navy uniforms and also styles tht were just for boys. The caps seem more diverse than the hats. And we see more boys wearing the caops rather thsn the hats. The large number of sailor styles were in part due to the long period in which sailor fashions were popular for boys, about 100 years. There were sailor caps with flat tops, soft crowns, tams, stocking caps, and other styles. The styles usually followed the standard uniform styles of the Royal Navy, but some like tams were specifically for children. We note sailor caps almost always being worn with sailor suits. This sounds obvious, but in Europe we note sailor caps sometimes being worn with non-sailor caps. This probably did not occur because the peaked school cap was so commonly worn during much of the era in which sailor caps were worn. A problem in assessing the different types is that they are usually described generically as sailor caps. We are not even entirely sure that they had proper names. If they did we have not yet foundc them. A factor here is that after about the 1880s we do not see very many older boys wearing sailor outfits as was common in several Continental countries. .
Sailor caps are of course most associated with sailor suits. But sailor headwear, both caps and haats were worn with other outfits as well. This of course speaks to the populoarity of sailor-stykled jeadwear. Od course not all outfits had a specific dedicated style of headwear. And a boy unless from a vey wealthy family could not have headwear for every different style of suit. As sailor outfits were so common, it thus was only natural for sailor headwaer to be worn with other non-sailor outfits. Large numbers of boys had sailor suits, esoecially middle-classs boys. (Uper-class boys akso wee likely to have sailor suits, but unlike thr middle-class was a small segment of the population.) Thus the sailor cap was a cap that many boys had. And more often than not, the jeadwear that most boys had weere caps and a very common capmstyle that boys had were sailoor caps. Caps were less expensive than hats and were worn by a wider age range than hats. Thus we see sailor caps with all sorts of different suits and blousers.
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