Figure 1.--Here we see two unidentified Birmingham brothers wearing identical velvet sailor suits. They are done with doublke-breasted styling. Notice vthat they seemed to be wearing velvet vests wich can be seen in V-front area. Notice the wide stripe on the knee pants. The only difference is all the very impressive medals the older boy is wearing. We are not sure what that is all about. Perhaps they are their father's medals. The striped stockings help to date the portarist to the 1870s. The studio is T. Pope in Birmingham.
Some of the most expenive children's clothes were done in velvet. This was usually, but not always dark-colored suits. Black velvet was the most common, but there were other cors as well. More expensive dressy sailor suits might be made in velvet. They were usually dark colored sailor suits. The unidentified boy on the previous page is a good example (figure 1). There were also light-colored velvet, but much less common. Velvet suits including sailor suits were usually done for the younger boys. Velvet was primarily a cotton fabric, but the better grades had silk mixed into the weave. It is usually difficult to assess the specific fabric from photographic images. An exception here is velvet. We can usually identify velvet. Here the sheen of the fabric is often a give away. Most of the velvet sailor suits we have noted were worn by boys during the fauntleroy era (1885-1905). The Fauntelery craze apparently increased the popularity of velvet outfits for boys.
