From working decks to fashionable promenades, the remarkable journey of nautical style

Before the Riviera, There Was Work

The striped shirt has enjoyed one of fashion’s most impressive social climbs. It began as part of a sailor’s wardrobe and eventually found itself photographed on fashionable terraces, worn by movie stars, and sold by luxury houses for prices that might surprise the people who originally wore it. Few garments have traveled so far without fundamentally changing their appearance.

But nautical style was never one uniform shared by everyone who worked near the sea. Fishermen, naval crews, merchant sailors, and yacht owners dressed for different jobs, climates, and social expectations. Heavy wool sweaters, practical trousers, naval jackets, and striped jerseys belonged to overlapping maritime traditions, not one perfectly coordinated coastal wardrobe. The sea may have connected them, but it certainly didn’t employ a stylist.

The famous French marinière offers a particularly revealing example. In 1858, the French Navy formally specified a striped jersey for its sailors, with regulations governing the arrangement of its blue and white stripes. The garment became an enduring symbol of French maritime identity, although its associations with Brittany and the Atlantic remind us that nautical fashion was never exclusively Mediterranean. Its eventual arrival on the Riviera was part of a much larger journey from workwear to fashionable leisure. What changed wasn’t simply the clothing. It was who could afford to wear it without having to do the work.

When the Wealthy Discovered Practical Clothing

By the nineteenth century, maritime-inspired clothing was already entering fashionable wardrobes. Royal and aristocratic enthusiasm for sailor dress helped turn elements of naval uniform into symbols of recreation, childhood, and status. The same sea that demanded hard labor from one group offered picturesque leisure to another. Fashion has always been remarkably comfortable with that arrangement.

Then came Gabrielle Chanel, who understood that seaside dressing could offer women something more interesting than another decorative costume. In Deauville, on France’s Normandy coast, she began selling practical jersey sportswear in 1913, using a material more commonly associated with men’s underwear. Her designs borrowed from menswear and sailor clothing, but their significance was not merely nautical. They allowed women to move more freely while remaining unmistakably fashionable.

One surviving Chanel blouse from 1916, now documented by the Victoria and Albert Museum, features a sailor-inspired collar, softly draped silk jersey, and an easy belted silhouette. It is an elegant reminder that the revolution wasn’t simply putting women in stripes. Chanel helped transform garments associated with utility into an alternative to restrictive dressing. The coast became a place where fashion could relax without surrendering its sophistication.

The Riviera Made It Look Effortless

As seaside holidays became an established part of fashionable life, nautical clothing acquired a new personality. Striped tops, wide-legged trousers, lightweight knits, and relaxed shirts suggested an active life spent between the water and the shore. Their appeal was partly visual, but it was also social: they represented freedom from the more rigid expectations of city dressing. A sweater worn casually over the shoulders could suggest that one had just returned from sailing, whether or not a boat had been involved.

The Mediterranean added its own character to this transformation. Along the French and Italian Rivieras, maritime references mingled with tailoring, resort culture, cinema, and the pleasure of dressing for an entire day rather than a single occasion. White trousers could appear with a beautiful jacket, a striped shirt with silk, or a simple cotton dress with jewelry that had no practical relationship to sailing whatsoever. The result was no longer a sailor’s uniform. It was a wardrobe borrowing the sailor’s freedom.

That freedom is perhaps the reason nautical fashion survived long after its original associations became less visible. Unlike styles dependent on elaborate construction or uncomfortable proportions, its most recognizable garments were designed around movement. The appeal of a well-made knit, comfortable trousers, or a shirt that tolerates a little wind doesn’t require much explanation. It requires wearing them.

Fashion Never Quite Let Go of the Stripes

If Chanel helped bring maritime clothing into modern women’s fashion, Jean Paul Gaultier demonstrated how far the striped shirt could travel without losing its identity. The French designer repeatedly reinvented the marinière, transforming it into a signature that could be playful, provocative, sculptural, or unexpectedly formal. A garment associated with uniformity became an instrument of individual expression. Not bad for a shirt originally expected to follow regulations.

Gaultier’s official collections still feature variations on the marinière, while examples of his historical interpretations are preserved in the Palais Galliera’s fashion collection. The significance isn’t that stripes periodically return to fashion; it’s that designers keep finding new things to say with them. A simple graphic pattern can accommodate surprisingly different personalities.

California Took the Uniform Off Duty

Across the Atlantic, California developed a coastal wardrobe with some familiar ingredients but a different attitude. Sailing culture, beachwear, sportswear, and everyday casual dressing all contributed to a style less concerned with appearing ready for a yacht club. The striped shirt could coexist with faded denim, a navy sweater with relaxed cotton trousers, and a beautifully tailored jacket with shoes intended for walking.

This is where the comparison becomes more interesting than the usual navy-and-white mood board. The Riviera helped turn nautical clothing into a language of leisure and sophistication; California made casual coastal dressing part of ordinary life. Neither coast owns comfort, of course, and neither has a monopoly on elegance. But their different interpretations reveal how easily the same garment can change character depending on what surrounds it.

A navy blazer worn with pressed white trousers can suggest a particular kind of Riviera polish. Wear that blazer with softened denim and a simple cotton shirt, and the mood shifts without requiring an entirely different wardrobe. The pieces haven’t changed very much. The attitude has.

The Best Nautical Style Doesn't Look Like a Costume

The reason nautical style has endured is that its most successful elements have escaped their original symbolism. A striped shirt no longer requires a maritime explanation, just as a navy jacket doesn’t need gold buttons or a nearby yacht to justify its existence. These garments have become classics because they can belong to many different lives. The moment we insist on wearing every nautical reference at once, however, the effect becomes less Riviera and more enthusiastic cruise director.

The more compelling approach is to borrow the intelligence of maritime clothing rather than its entire visual vocabulary. Choose fabrics that move comfortably, layers that respond to changing temperatures, and pieces that can travel from an informal afternoon to a more considered evening. Allow something beautifully tailored to meet something wonderfully relaxed. That is where nautical dressing becomes personal rather than predictable.

And perhaps this is the most interesting part of the story. Fashion borrowed clothing from people whose lives demanded practicality, transformed it into a symbol of privilege, and eventually made those same practical qualities desirable again. The striped shirt survived the journey because it never stopped being useful.

The Riviera may have made nautical style chic. But the sailors understood comfort long before fashion decided it was elegant.