Figure 1.-- This cabinet card was taken in Niort, France during 1911. Niort is a Roman commune (town) near the Bay of Biscay in western France. Niort is located on the Sèvre Niortaise River. The portrait with a rather dramatic setting shows two siblings, Susie and Johnnie, with their little pooch. They look to be aboy 5-10 years old. Susie wears a white dress with long balon sllees and a high-set sar ribbon waistband and side bow with long tails. She had two small hair bows. Johnnie wears a white sailor blouse wth dark trim and matching sraight-leg knee pants with dark socks. Interestingly the inscrition on the back is written in English. They gave some english relatives. The inscription reads, "Two little far-off cousins , Johnnie and Sussie, with their pet. June, 1911." Johnnie and Sussie of course are English names, but they could be transltions. Johnnie's clothes look very French. The studio is Guillerme in Niort.

The conventions for sailor suits in France were somewhat different than in other countries during the early-20th century. We have found no written material on this, but it appears to be the case emerging from the photographic record we have archived. We tend to see sailor suits being worn more for dressing up or a least a smart casual outfit than in other countries. Johnnie here is a good exmple (figure 1). The children are dressed up for their portrait. We see relatively few French boys wearing sailor outfit play suits which was becoming popular in America. And we note boys in Germany wearing older sailor suits for play. Another factor affecting sailor suit conventions was school. We see many European and American boys wearing sailor suits to school. This was the case in France as well, but much less commonly thn with many other countries. One factor was that many of the primary-age boys who most commonly wore sailor suits in other countrie, wore smocks to school. Thus sailor suits were not nearly as common for school wear as in many other countries. This was also true to varying degrees in other countries where boys wore smocks to school uch as Italy and Belgium. And in both countries we see similat patterns where the sailor suit was more of a dressy than a play outfit.

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Created: 12:49 AM 9/13/2016
Last updated: 12:49 AM 9/13/2016