Waistcoat
A waistcoat or vest is a sleeveless upper-body garment. It is usually worn over a dress shirt and necktie and below a coat as a part of most men's formal wear. It is also sported as the third piece in the traditional three-piece male suit. Any given waistcoat can be simple or ornate, or for leisure or luxury. Historically, the waistcoat can be worn either in the place of, or underneath, a larger coat, dependent upon the weather, wearer, and setting.
Daytime formal wear and semi-formal wear commonly comprises a contrastingly coloured waistcoat, such as in buff or dove gray, still seen in morning dress and black lounge suit. Traditionally, a white waistcoat is worn for white tie and a black one for black tie.
Names
The term waistcoat is used in the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries. The term vest is used widely in the United States and Canada. The term vest derives from the French language veste "jacket, sport coat", the term for a vest-waistcoat in French today being gilet, the Italian language veste "robe, gown", and the Latin language vestis. The term vest in European countries refers to the A-shirt, a type of athletic vest. The banyan, a garment of India, is commonly called a vest in Indian English. The term waistcoat was also used to refer to a type of short jacket worn by women in England since at least the 16th century.Diarist Samuel Pepys records "vest" in 1666 as the original English term for the garment. The word "waistcoat" derives from the cutting of the coat at waist-level, since at the time of the coining, tailors cut men's formal coats well below the waist. An alternative theory is that, as material was left over from the tailoring of a two-piece suit, it was fashioned into a "waste-coat" to avoid that material being wasted, although recent academic debate has cast doubt on this theory. During the 17th century, troops of the regular army – and to some degree also local militia – wore waistcoats which were the reverse colour of their overcoats. It is believed that these were made by turning old worn-out standard issue overcoats inside-out and removing the sleeves. The term "waistcoat" might therefore also be derived from the wastage of the old coat.
Characteristics and use
A waistcoat has a full vertical opening in the front, which fastens with buttons or press studs. Both single-breasted and double-breasted waistcoats exist, regardless of the formality of dress, but single-breasted ones are more common. In a three piece suit, the cloth used matches the jacket and trousers. Waistcoats can also have lapels or revers depending on the style.Before wristwatches became popular, gentlemen kept their pocket watches in the front waistcoat pocket, with the watch on a watch chain threaded through a buttonhole. Sometimes an extra hole was made in line with the pockets for this use. A bar on the end of the chain held it in place to catch the chain if it were dropped or pulled.
Wearing a belt with a waistcoat, and indeed any suit, is not traditional. To give a more comfortable hang to the trousers, the waistcoat instead covers a pair of braces underneath it.
A custom still sometimes practised is to leave the bottom button undone. Several explanations are popularly given for the origin of this practice. One often-cited one falsely claims that the custom was started by Edward VII, whose expanding waistline required it. Variations on this myth include that he forgot to fasten the lower button when dressing and this was copied.
It has also been suggested that the practice originated to prevent the waistcoat riding up when on horseback. Undoing the bottom button avoids stress to the bottom button when sitting down; when it is fastened, the bottom of the waistcoat pulls sideways causing wrinkling and bulging, since modern waistcoats are cut lower than old ones. This convention only applies to single-breasted day waistcoats and not double breasted, evening, straight-hem or livery waistcoats that are all fully buttoned.
Daywear
Waistcoats worn with lounge suits normally match the suit in cloth, and have four to six buttons. Double-breasted waistcoats are rare compared to single but are more commonly seen in morning dress. These may either match the colour of the morning coat or be in a contrasting colour, commonly buff, dove gray, or powder blue.Evening wear
The waistcoats worn with white- and black- tie are different from standard daytime single-breasted waistcoats, being much lower in cut. The much larger expanse of shirt compared to a daytime waistcoat allows more variety of form, with "U" or "V" shapes possible, and there is large choice of outlines for the tips, ranging from pointed to flat or rounded. The colour normally matches the tie, so only black barathea wool, grosgrain or satin and white marcella, grosgrain or satin are worn, although white waistcoats used to be worn with black tie in early forms of the dress.Waiters, sometimes also waitresses, and other people working at white-tie events, to distinguish themselves from guests, sometimes wear gray tie, which consists of the dress coat of white tie with the black waistcoat and tie of black tie.
Clergy
The variant of the clergy cassock may be cut as a vest. It differs in style from other waistcoats in that the garment buttons to the neck and has an opening that displays the clerical collar.Sometime around 1830, a new Church of England clerical waistcoat was given the epithet "M.B. Waistcoat" when the garment was introduced by High Church clergy: "M.B." was intended to be a pejorative or jocular reference to the "Mark of the Beast", applied by non-High Church Anglicans.
Scouting
In the Girl Scouts of the USA, vests are used as an alternative to the sash for the display of badges.Sport
Waistcoats, alongside bowties, are commonly worn by billiard players during a tournament. It is usually worn in snooker and blackball tournaments in the United Kingdom.History
The predecessors to the waistcoat are the Middle Age-era doublet and gambeson.Various types of waistcoats may have been worn in theatrical manners such as performances and masquerades prior to what is said to be the early origins of the vest.
The brightly coloured silk waistcoats popularised in France and England from the 17th century became an element of the ensemble that presaged the development of the three-piece lounge suit, together with the cravat, derived from a scarf worn by Croatian mercenaries fighting for King Louis XIII of France, and the justacorps, a coat influenced by the long zupans worn in Poland and Ukraine.
17th–18th centuries
In France, from the mid-17th century, the "veste" was worn to mid-thigh or knee-length, beneath a justacorps. The garment was long-sleeved. Both veste and justacorps were worn in court circles in highly ornate styles. In 1662, Louis XIV granted, as a mark of special favour, select courtiers permission to wear exclusive justaucorps and veste, elaborately styled to echo the king's own.In October 1666, King Charles II of England launched a new fashion in men's wear for the English. The item was a long piece donned beneath the coat that was meant to be seen. Scholar Diana De Marly suggests that the formation of such a mode of dress acted as a response to French fashion being so dominant in the time period. While in the 17th and 18th centuries, waistcoats were often elaborate and brightly coloured, changing fashions in the nineteenth century narrowed this to a more restricted palette, leading to the matching waistcoats worn with lounge suits.
The garmentand Charles II's championing of itis mentioned in a diary entry of October 8, 1666 by Samuel Pepys, the diarist and civil servant. He noted that "the King hath yesterday in council declared his resolution of setting a fashion for clothes which he will never alter. It will be a vest, I know not well how; but it is to teach the nobility thrift." This royal decree provided the first documented mention of the vest or waistcoat.
John Evelyn wrote about waistcoats on October 18, 1666: "To Court, it being the first time his Majesty put himself solemnly into the Eastern fashion of vest, changing doublet, stiff collar, bands and cloak, into a comely dress after the Persian mode, with girdles or straps, and shoestrings and garters into buckles... resolving never to alter it, and to leave the French mode". While Evelyn designated the costume Persian, it was more directly influenced by the Turkish.
The general layout of the vest at its introduction by Charles II was: buttons very closely sewn together, arranged in two rows, lining the front body of the vest, visible underneath a wide-open coat face. The vest was only popular for about seven years after its introduction by Charles; the king soon reverted to French styles. While the vest died out in elite city spaces, it lingered on in the provinces. In 1678 it was reintroduced throughout Europe, attaining high-fashion status again.
French fashions were a dominant influence in the royal courts of Europe throughout the 18th century. From the late 17th century, Spanish royals and nobility were incorporating French garments such as the veste and justacorps into male dress, at least for wear at private occasions. Away from court, Carlos II dressed in the French style; outfits in the Spanish style continued to be worn by the king and his courtiers for official purposes and court events. By the end of Felipe V's reign the waistcoat, along with other French men's garments, had been fully adopted in Spain. Wearing Spanish styles at court remained customary during Felipe's reign, however, as these were strongly associated with Spain's national identity.
Over the first half of the 18th century, the vest evolved from a collarless, sleeved, straight-cut garment, with closely spaced buttons from hem to neck. At first the same length as the covering jacket, by mid-century the vest was becoming shorter. Where the earlier models were left unbuttoned above the abdomen, so that the lace or fabric of the shirt could be seen, later, cutting the front panels to curve away at the top become more usual. The straight cut, with slits from the waist at the sides and back to allow free movement, gave way to fuller, flared skirts. In the early 18th century, the sleeves and back would often be made from plainer fabrics; by the end of the century waistcoats were often sleeveless.