Origins of the Breton Striped Shirt

The Breton shirt was created officially by French law, the 27th of March 1858 Act, which made the blue-and-white striped knitted shirt part of the regulatory uniform for French sailors. It was thought that the stripes would help to locate seamen who fell overboard.

The original shirt featured 21 stripes, one for each of Napoleon’s victories. 

Not only did this shirt become the standard of the French (merchant) navy and fishing fleets, it was soon exported to other navies around the world and became big as a fashion item a century after. 

In the late 1950s and ’60s, the shirt was associated with French New Wave cinema — girls with gamine looks like Jean Seberg in “Breathless”

and Jeanne Moreau in “Jules et Jim.”

This is the first post in a series, exploring the origins, travels and use of the Breton Shirt.