Tailcoat
The tailcoat vest is a special piqué vest that is worn under the tailcoat jacket. Today it is mostly open at the back, has a deep neckline and is closed at the lower end either with piqué buttons or with special mother-of-pearl or pearl buttons. Usually it is kept in pure white (proverb: " white vest "); Off-white / cream shades were also possible until the beginning of the 20th century.
In the past, the tailcoat was also worn as an elegant promenade suit during the day, then even colored vests and trousers of different colors were possible. This went largely out of use around 1860, when a sack-shaped jacket appeared in fashion, which was referred to by the Italian word jacket . The tailcoat was then almost exclusively worn in black, soon only supplemented by white accessories, white waistcoat, white starched shirt with white bow, so that the term black-and-white style prevailed for it. If the tailcoat is not worn in the evening (exceptionally or in countries where this is still common, e.g. in the Scandinavian monarchies), today it is almost always worn with a white vest - in Germany simply because the old rule has been forgotten here and is hardly known to anyone.
literature
- von Eelking, Baron Hermann-Marten: Lexicon of men's fashion. Goettingen 1960
Individual evidence
- ↑ von Eelking, Lexikon der Herrenmode, p. 162 ff.