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The sailor suit by the 1890s had become a very important style for boys. We also see girls wearing sailor outfits, but of course with skirts instead of pants. We see a variety of sailor suit styles, including some more traditionaly styled sailor suits in the 1890s. Many suits, however, did not have traditional styling with the three-stripe detailing. We do note one style that seems to have been popular in the 1880s or even early 1890s. The style incorporated a more formal white collar with a sailor suit. We are not sure what to call this collar. It is something like a connecting collar as the two wings overlap. It looks to be an added collar, not part of the sailor suit itself. We have not noted American boys wearing this style, but we are unsure to what extent this was a destinctive German fashion. We also note ir being worn in the early 20th century. More traditional styles began to become more standard in the 1890s. This portrait is undated, but we believe it was probably taken in the 1890s, in part because of the length of the knee pants (figure 1). This we can pursue this with more insight as HBC expabds its archive of 19th century German images.
The sailor suit by the 1890s had become a very important style for German boys. We see the sailor suit increasing in popularity after it first appeared in the 1860s. By the 1890s the sailor suit had become a major style for boys. We see large numbers of German boys wearing sailor outfits of various types. We are not sure why this fashion development occurred. Germany did not have an important navy in the 1890s and naval advocated had just begun to push for one. It has to be realized that the evolving big-gun battleships were the super-weapn of the age and that a ciountry's power and presitige had been to be recockened in terms of the number of battleships. The influence of the German and other European royal families may have been factors. Germany was beginning to build a colonial empire, with small scattered colonies in Africa and the Pacific. The general attituide was that the new colonies did not adequately reflect the power abd glory of the new German empire. The sailor suit had also become popular in other countries, including America, Britain, and France. We are not sure to what extent fashion trends in those countries influenced German fashions. Interestingly, the sailor suit in the 20th century would become more popular in Germany than any other country.
We are just beginning to work out sailor suit gender trends during the 1890s. We see large numbers of boys wearing sailor suits. We also see girls wearing sailor outfits, but of course with skirts instead of pants. Girl sailor suits were not as common as the boy outfits, but we see some in the 1890s. We are not sure about the time line here, but we do not think that the sailior styles were very common for girls in the 1880s and even in the 90s were less common for girls than boys. This is not real easy to work out. We have a substantial and growing German archive, although we have many more 20th century than 19th century images. A good indicator here is tht images of girls in sailor suits during the 90s are not very common. And while we commonly see boys wearing sailor suits whike their sisters wear other outfits, we do not very commonly see girls in sailor oitfirs while their brothers wear other outfits.
We see a variety of sailor suit styles, including some more traditionaly styled sailor suits in the 1890s. Many suits, however, did not have traditional styling with the three-stripe detailing. We do note one style that seems to have been popular in the 1880s or even early 1890s. The style incorporated a more formal white collar with a sailor suit, a kind of double collar. We are not sure what to call this collar. It is something like a connecting collar as the two wings overlap. It looks to be an added collar, not part of the sailor suit itself. We have not noted American boys wearing this style, but we are unsure to what extent this was a destinctive German fashion. We also note it being worn in the early 20th century. More traditional styles began to become more standard in the 1890s. The portrait here is undated, but we believe it was probably taken in the 1890s, in part because of the length of the knee pants (figure 1). This we can pursue this with more insight as HBC expabds its archive of 19th century German images.
German boys wore a range of sailor garments. A sailor suit is compised primarily of a pants and blouse matching combination. Both garments and styling was still quite varied in the 1890s. Thus we see quite a mix of garments.The top is usually a blouse, We note pull-over blouses as well as button-up jacket shirts. Some of these had quite a number of buttons. The dickies were done in sa variety of ways. We also notice various kinds of pants, including knee pants, bloomer knickers, and long pants. The blouse and pants almost always matched. There were also a range of headwear includig some matching caps. There were also sailor caps and hats that did not match the sailot suit in material and color.
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Created: 9:48 PM 3/14/2008
Last updated: 4:52 AM 4/7/2012
