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We see German boys wearing wide variety of suit styles, especially during the 19th and early-20th century. German boys did not wear uniforms, except at cadet schools. Thus the suits worn were their regular clothes and not uniform suits. We do not know any styles especially designed for school wear, except perhaps the cadet unifrms. Thus the suit styles were essentially the same as the suits worn by boys for other occassions. We note a great deal about the suits for younger boys because it was so common to take photographs on the first day of school. There was quite a variety of styles. The suits worn by younger boys were especially varied. Sailor suits were just one of the many styles popular for the younger boys. We know quite a bit about the various styles because so many children had their portraits taken on the first day of school. We see quite a few photographs of younger boys in suits. This may have been first day portraits and not what they normally wore. While older boys were confined primarily to single- or double-breasted suits, We also see some blazers, although this was not very common. we see much more varied suits by the younger boys. And we think older boys wore suits every day and not just on special days.
The blazer is a garment primarily associated with Britain and British Empire schoolwear. We do notice a few German boys wearing blazers. It was not a major school style, but we do do notice a few German boys wearing blazers. And it some cases they were not just standard blue blazers that American boys commonly wore, although not necesarily as a school garment. Given the black and white photography of the day, we can not tell much about color. We notice a few boysing striped jackets blazers, some of which look rather like colorful British school blazers. Of course the blazers German boys wore were not uniform blazers, but curiously we note one school in which several boys are wearing stripped jackets. We are not positive they are blazers, but they certainly look like it. And it is curious that so many boys would wear similar jackets without the school playing a role.
Collar-buttoning jackets were one of the styles popular for boys. Adults generally wore frock coats in the 19th century and gradually sack suits became the dominant style by the late-19th century. Boat coats had lapels. Many boys wore suit jackets without lapels that buttoned ast the collar. These were very common in the 19th and early-20th century. We note many different styles.
Cut-away jackets were aniother popular style for boys. Younger boys wore cut-away jacket suits in the 19th century, especially the seconf half of the 19th century. Thus we see boys wearing these suits to schhool.
German children for the most part did wear school unifiorms. The exception was the boys attending cadet schools.
Boys in primary school were likely to wear a variety of suit styles, including sailir suits and other styles. By the time they entered secondaru school they were incrweasingly likely to wear various types of sack suits wuth lapel jackets. We notice all the standard styles, including single and double-breasted jackets. This became more common as the 20th century progressed unil after World war II when more casual styles clothing became more common and suits were less commonly worn to school.
Sailor suits and sailor-styled garments were a popular style worn by German school children, both boys and girls. HBC has little information on schoolwear in Germany during the 19th century, at least by the 1890s. We are not sure, however, just when German boys began wearing sailor suits. Kaiser Wilhelm II himself in the 1860s, because of his English mother, may have been one of the first German boys to wear sailor suits. We believe that sailor suits were probably common in the late 19th century as Kaiser Wilhelm after dismissing Chancellor Bismarck, began to build a fleet of highseas battleships--a development of enormous national pride and a pet project of the Kaiser. We note that many younger school boys in the early 20th century wore sailor suits to school. Unfortunately many of these images are undated, making it difficult to track the trends. We notice boys wearing quite a range of different sailorsuits to school. Some, like the one here, were very traditional, looking like the actual uniforms worn by German sailors. Notice for example the three white stripes on this boy's "V" collar (figure 1). Other styles were more fanciful. Many boys, but not all, wore sailor suits for their first day of school. Many older boys wore them as well, but this varied over time. We are not sure how popular they were with the boys and do not yet have any actual contemporary accounts on this subject. Sailor suits declined in popularity during the NAZI era (1933-45). I see no indication that boys after the War wore sailor suits to school any more.
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