Clothes make the sailor-man!

NEWS	PHOTOGALLERY

Historically the clothing worn by sailors in the various European navies differed little from civilian dress. This situation continued until the late seventeenth century, when the Royal Navy began to adopt a blue suit or justicoat with waistcoat and white kid or cotton duck knee breeches with white silk stockings. Crew uniforms didn’t appear until the end of the Napoleonic wars. Until that time the “lower orders” made do with what they had on their backs when they were pressed into service, or what they could scavenge on board.
As for the appearance and cut of the uniforms worn by the various European fleets, the pattern was always set by the most powerful navy of the eighteenth and ninteenth centuries - the British Royal Navy. Even now it’s still hard to differentiate between the uniform of a British or American admiral and French or Italian officers of the same rank. In this article we’ll take a look at the individual garments worn by officers and men and examine their evolution.

Headgear
Throughout the eighteenth century officers wore the tricorn - its three “spouts” meant it could rapidly shed rain and spray. It was succeeded by the two-pointed cocked hat, but as this too had no chinstrap it could easily be blown off by an unexpected gust of wind. It was worn fore and aft on the head. Nineteenth-century Italian marines wore theirs sideways on. In the nineteenth century almost every navy adopted the peaked cap for officers and petty officers. They could also be worn in high winds as they were secured with a chinstrap, as was the waxed cotton sou’wester to be worn in heavy weather.
Seventeeth-century crews protected their head from the sun with a knotted handkerchief, pirate-style, while the gunners also used a bandana to keep sweat out their eyes during firing.
In the nineteenth century sailors used caps without a peak, called the “pizza” by Italian crews, and these remain part of the uniform. French mariners add a red pom-pom. Unfortunately the lovely straw boaters that used to form part of the summer or colonial uniform have disappeared from use. The late nineteenth century saw the arrival of the cotton cap - as worn by Donald Duck, for example!
It’s surprising that nobody thought of adopting the kind of Phrygian cap used by the Smurfs, or by the topless Marianne in the painting by Eugène Delacroix hanging in the Louvre that depicts her leading an angry mob baying for the heads of priests and aristocrats. This hat has been worn by all Mediterranean sailors from time immemorial, as they use the turn-up to store tobacco, flint and other comforts.

Jacket
We’ve mentioned that the first officers’ uniform comprised a coat that was close-fitting to the waist then flared out. This jacket has wide cuffs fastened by buttons. The ends of the sleeves began to acquire dozens of buttons in order to prevent young midshipmen, who took to sea at the age of ten or eleven, from wiping their noses on it.
The next step was the jacket with a round, buttoned collar, which then became a double-breasted jacket with lapels and three or four buttons, first as long as a riding coat, then normal length.
The word “blazer” derives from the Royal Navy ship HMS Blazer - in the early nineteenth century her captain decided to provide a crew uniform at his own expense.
Some navies also sport a “mess jacket”, a frock coat without the tails. Current naval uniforms also include the Pea jacket, a kind of short blue woollen coat, and the woollen duffel coat with toggles and loops that can be fastened by gloved fingers. This type of jacket was used by the Royal Navy for winter operations in the north Atlantic.

Trousers
Until 1820 officers wore knee breeches and white cotton or silk stockings. These were replaced by straight woollen trousers held up by braces, or suspenders in American English, and these have remained substantially unchanged until modern times. The crew, though, wore white duck or wool bell-bottom trousers that could be taken off quickly if the sailor found himself in the water.
Shorts appeared in this context in the early twentieth century, copied from the short trousers worn by colonial troops in Africa and India. They were nicknamed “Empire Builders”, and the correct versions were slightly flared, knee length and worn with socks turned down below the knee. Until recently the Italian navy prescribed attractive white shorts for officers and blue ones for the men. In cooler weather it was considered elegant to wear the short blue woollen winter jacket over the summer uniform of short-sleeved white shirt and shorts.

Accessories
Many seamen added a so-called sailor’s collar to their uniform, a sort of canvas kerchief in a variety of patterns, worn under the collar at the back - once again, a style favoured by Donald Duck! Its purpose was to prevent the uniform being stained by the dangling pigtails sailors used to wear.
As far as footwear is concerned, some navies still use boots with elastic at the sides, like Chelsea boots - these can be kicked off rapidly in the event of an unexpected swim!

Riccardo Notarbartolo di Villarosa