Figure 1.--This CDV portait shows two brothers about 8-10 years old. They wear matching sack suits with matching vests and knickler pants. They have classic Eton collars with narrow ribbon bows. The suits could be their prep school uniforms. We are not as competent in dating English CDVs as Anmerican ones. The dealers believes that it dates to the 1880s. The bows look more like the early than the late-80s. The studio is the Parisian School of Photography in London.

Sack suits were a style appearing in the Victorian era in the mid-19th century. It was created by the French (late-1840s). It was a great sucess and was rapidly adopted by the British and Americans as well as the rest of Europe. It quickly became the standard boy boys' suit. It was seen as a more informal style for men than the standard frock suit that men were wearing. It was widely adopted for the workplace by working and business wear for both skilled workers and clerks (1850s). Sack suits became standard for general purpose outdoors wear (1860s). It was not intended as a boys' outfit. but it was adopted by British public (private boarding) schools which were very influential in setting boys' fashions at the time. The term is misleading. Sack does not refer to the jacket being oversized, loose, or baggy as the word sack/sacque suggests. Rather it appears to refer to the cut--the straight-hanging drape of the back. The was formed of only two pieces which were cut basically straight down. The frock coat which was still stanndard at mid-century was constructed from four curved pieces often including hidden pockets in the tails. The same was true as the related tail coats, morning coats, and frocks. The term sack coat was not universal. Trade magazines used fifferent terms, but sack coat was the most common. It is not commonly in used today as it is so misleading. A bettern modern term is probably something like a standard suit. The simpler two piece construction made in more adaptable for mass oroductionj -- meaning the ready-made trade. The jackets varies in different ways, including the length of jacket and sleeve, number and style of pockets, collar, lapels, and the cut of the front. We see close cuts, full cuts, single breasted, and double breasted jackets.

Single-breasted Jacket

Older boys wore sack suits and these gradually became the sandard style, although double-breasted jackets were very popular in the late-19th century. Boys wore both single and double breasted suit jackets. Single-breasted coats have been the major style worn by boys in England. Here the prevalence of the blazer and single-breasted jacket in school uniforms were probably a major factor. Public school wear was very influential in boys' fashions at the time.

Double-breasted Jacket

We do not yet have basic information on double-breasted styling. We believe it have originated with naval garments, specifically the pea-coat or reefer jacket. It may have had Dutch-English origins. The name come from a heavy Dutch fabric--'pij' cloth. This came to be known as P-cloth. Peas never figured into it--only the letter'P' which is pronounced 'pea' in English. The British Royal Navy seems to have adopted the heavy Dutch cloth and the short cut of the jacket which gave salors the needed freedom of motion in working aboard ships, especially the rigging. We do not know when the double breasted frature was adopted for pea-coats. It was also called a reffer (another naval term) jacket, because short outer garments are often called jackets. Royal Navy pea coats/reefer jackets had double-breasted closings. The double-breasted closing had to keep the chest warm, a valuable feature for sailors. This was especially the case of 18th and 19th century sailors abord actual sailing vessels who had to work on the exposed decks and rigging in stormy weather. Modern pea coats are single breasted, but commonly have a second row of button for ornamentation giving a double-breasted look. Gradually the styling was introduced in men's clothing. We are nor sure just when the first double breasted pea-coat appeared or when double-breasted styling was picked up for use in men's fashions. It was never a decicated boy's fashions, although because boys's wore sailor outfits, boys did wear double-breasted garments like pea-coats. In addition we see boys weating double-breasred suit jackets and or double-beasted vests. But this seems to be because men were wearing souble-breasted suits not becuse it was a boy's style. We note English boys wearing suit jackets during the 1870s. We suspect that they were also worn in the 1860s, but do not yet have a dated example. The popularity of double-breasted jackets varied over time. After World War I, the single-breasted jacket became the major style. School uniforms were mosly done with single-breasted blazers or jackets.

Short-length Lapel Jackets

We see some boys with short lapel jackets. These might be called Eton jackets, but we note them being worn without Eton collars. The length of these jackets and the size of the lapels were among the variations in these jackets. Cut-away jackets were also short, but generally did not have lapels. We think these short jackets were primarily a school style, perhaps Englisgh readers can confirm this. This jacket may be better described as a school unifirm style, but we can not yet conform that this was the excludive usage. Eton jackets may have been the precursor for these short jackets, but it is hard to describe them as Eton jackets when worn without the destinctive Eton collars. There were a number of public (private boarding) schools in Britain and they all seem to have wanted a somewhat varied uniform. The examples we have found seem to date to the 1860s-70s, but our archive is limited and this is just areliminary assessment.

Created: 4:39 PM 8/31/2018
Last updated: 4:40 PM 8/31/2018