Cultural Objects eTwinning Project French object presentation

1. The French sailor shirt
La Marinière

2. The striped Breton shirt as we know it today came into
being shortly following the 27th March, 1858 Act of
Francewhich introduced the navy and white striped
knitted shirt as the uniform for all French navy seaman
in Brittany. The shirt was originally known as
marinière or matelott.

3. So the first Marinières belonged to sailors,
and old paintings show seamen wearing
them as early as the 17th century.
Until 1858, only officers of the French
Navy had to wear a specific uniform.
Everyday clothes were the ordinary
seaman's attire on board. That year, a
decree defined the sailor's official uniform
in minute detail (color, number and length
of stripes, etc.)

4. The official striped navy and white shirt became more generally a
working mariner garment as it was picked up by men of the sea and
sailors across the region of Northern France. The distinctive block
pattern of stripes on the French striped shirt made them easier to
spot in the waves. The garment usually had a boat neckline.
The Saint James Binic II sweater was
released by Saint James in 1889 in
lower Normandy.
In the 1950s and 60s the shirt was
again popularized by the Beatnik
community and alternative culture.

5. Inspired by sailors, after a visit to
the French coast, Coco Chanel
introduced the design to the
fashion world through her
nautical collection in 1917.
The Breton top became a symbol
of haute-bourgeois loveliness
during the pre-war Riviera years.

6. The introduction of this garment from
the traditional working class to female
fashion, was a breakaway from the
heavily corseted belle epoque fashion
of the time.

7. There was no stopping the French sailor shirt, on its way to
worldwide domination - or at the very least, to French icon status -
once Coco Chanel declared it "à la mode" (trendy.)
In the 1950s, artists and intellectuals
adopted la Marinière. Voilà Pablo
Picasso, immortalized in his Breton
shirt by Robert Doisneau (1952.)

8. French actress Brigitte Bardot invented an iconic look:
la Marinière with flat ballet shoes and cropped jeans.

9. James Dean wore the Breton
striped top in the movie Rebel
Without a Cause (1955).
In the 1956 film Funny Face,
Audrey Hepburn was seen
wearing a black turtleneck
sweater, ski pants and a Breton
top[. The scene was a
recreation of the typical Paris
cellar clubs from the 1950s.

10. Following in Chanel's footsteps, famed designers re-invented the
Breton shirt. In the 1960s, Yves Saint Laurent launched elegant
collections inspired by the nautical style.

11. One generation later, Jean-Paul Gaultier adopted the nautical stripe
as his trademark.

12. Chanel made the Breton shirt famous among the French upper classes, but the
striped nautical style had been around for a while in the trendy European coastal
resort towns. At the turn of the century, stripes were everywhere: on towels, on
beach tents, and even on the long, conservative-looking bathing suits.

14. http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Breton_stripes
http://frenchgirlinseattle.blogspot.de/2011/10/la-mariniere-
french-sailor-shirt.html
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