Without a doubt, horizontal striped shirts (called marinières in French) are an iconic staple of French fashion. While this has been constructed into an ethnic caricature abroad, it’s true that horizontally striped shirts have been hugely popular in France and abroad for over a century now.

This style of shirt almost certainly obtained prominence through the 1858 reform of the French Navy’s uniforms. This reform made a cotton shirt with 21 horizontal stripes in navy blue the standard garment for French sailors, at least those based in Northern France. It’s possible that some ancestor of this shirt was common among fishermen in this region, as the stripes supposedly make it easier to identify a person who has fallen overboard.

Fast forward to the early 20th century, and the marinière is well-established as an iconic piece of French military attire. From there, it was more widely adopted by civilians, and became particularly associated with the Breton people, who made up a large portion of the French Navy, hence the common English term “Breton shirt”. At the time, the beach towns of Northern France were popular holiday destinations for affluent Parisians. It was fashionable (as in many beach resorts) to emulate the coastal attire of the locals, which of course included striped nautical shirts. Coco Chanel probably played a significant role in popularizing the garment, originally worn chiefly by male sailors, among women. Anyone traveling to France was likely to see at least a few.

Fast forward to the mid 20th century, and the garment becomes associated with another iconic aspect of French culture—the mime. Contrary to what people unfamiliar with the art form assume, miming is an ancient and varied form of physical theater that evolved in its modern French form out of the Italian commedia dell’arte and traditional Japanese theatre. Mimes are not French clowns. This misconception emerged because, nine times out of ten, when people think of a mime, they are thinking of Marcel Marceau, arguably the person who is singularly associated with the art form in the public imagination. The outfit associated with the mime in the popular imagination (black pants, striped shirt, hat) is not an outfit traditionally worn by all mime performers, but the costume of Marceau’s signature character, Bip the Clown, who wore a marinière. Marceau’s stage persona was so widely viewed, imitated (especially for tourists), and parodied, that the image of a silent clown (perhaps on a bike with a baguette in the basket) wearing a Breton shirt became an iconic symbol of France.

So, the nautically striped shirt likely acquired its quintessentially French image through a combination of its iconic status within France as a classic piece of coastal attire, and it’s association with Marcel Marceau, the embodiment of a major piece of French cultural heritage throughout the world.

Sources:

for the history of the garment, this article from the UK National Maritime Museum provides a good summary: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/stripes-sea-history-breton-top

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