Collar on a canvas Sailor's frock

[Matty Bottles]

I have looked all over for an image of an extant sailor's frock or period pictures of a sailor's frock, and all I can find is descriptions that they were like big shirts. Well, that made me wonder what the collar was like. Did they have big collars, short collars, band collars, no collars? And whilst google imaging, I found this:

This is a children's sailor suit from 1906, I think. Now compare it to this image:

Now, this is not the best image to compare, perhaps, but look at the similarity between the neck openings. Sure, there's only a limited way to put collars, cuffs, and whatnot together, but shirts had already changed by this time, and coats, sweaters, and jackets had been different for quite some time as well.

Now let's look at the smock the Pub's own Patrick Hand assembled (this is the best picture I could find):

I see similarities between what we acknowledge as the 'sailor suit' and this older design - and I mean more than just the blue cuffs. The cut, the flare of the body, the way it hangs, all seems to suggest a modern sailor suit. That makes me wonder if the GAoP sailor's frock (which is actually older than the GAoP, right?) is the predecessor for the modern sailor suit, still in use by the USN. Is this something so obvious that no one even needs to rehash it any more? Is this so ludicrous that it's not worth dicussion? I wonder if it would lead us to some clues as to how those older 'frocks' were constructed.

In any case, if I were to make a GAoP frock, how big of a collar should I have?

Edited July 3, 2007 by Bloody Jack Madd

[Matty Bottles]

Well, I'm starting to think that collar is much more likely than no collar. The wikipedia entry smock-frock led me to some interesting sites:

The Museum of Rural English Life

Historical Boys' Clothing

Both of these seem to indicate that collars were ubiquitous on rural smocks, at least. This leads me to think there might be a relationship between the 'modern' sailor suit and the ASC frock.

[MadMike]

There are plenty of details on period clothing on the Costumer's Manifesto website.

Yours, Mike

[Patrick Hand]

and I mean more than just the blue cuffs.

The blue cuffs on mine were just "dumb luck".... I didn't have enough canvas to make the sleeves long enough, so I extended them with some blue linen that I had......

The coller is just a short (about 1") band....

It would be interesting to find out when the "Sailors coller" did come out.... I know they were using them in the American Civil War.... but I don't know how much eairlier than that they are......

[Matty Bottles]

The way the bottom flares out and the neck really make me think there's a connection here, but I haven't found any evidence of it yet. I'm still looking, though.