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A vest (in Austria, Liechtenstein, Bavaria and Switzerland: gilet ) is an item of clothing and belongs to outer clothing . It is a sleeveless, waist-length jacket and is worn over another item of clothing, usually a shirt . In the fashion industry, the longer women's version is also known as a chasuble .
Vests are made of different fabrics. There are e.g. B. leather , linen, wool as well as knitted and quilted vests. In the three-piece men's suit, the front of the vest is made of the same material as the entire suit, while the back is made of lining material. For festive suits ( tuxedos ) and as a tailcoat vest , the vest can also be in contrasting colors or colorful.
A vest is usually buttoned at the front, with the bottom button traditionally remaining open on a suit vest. On the front, the vest had four, later also two, small pockets, originally often for the pocket watch worn on a watch chain . A vest is usually not worn with a double-breasted or high-necked single-breasted jacket , as it would not be visible.
A relatively new development are vests in the casual leisure look for men and women.
Functional vest
Some items of clothing that fulfill special functions have the shape of a vest, as this is the simplest form to enclose the entire upper body and thus protect a large area.
The best-known functional vest is the servant vest that was created in the 19th century instead of the livery , black and white striped lengthways , with black back and sleeves and at least four pockets to hold utensils such as keys, lighter or the like.
- The safety vest improves the visibility of people, for example in traffic.
- The life jacket keeps your head above water and also increases visibility.
- The bullet-resistant vest protects vital organs from weapons and projectiles.
- The camouflage vest helps soldiers and hunters to remain undetected.
- With a buoyancy compensator, divers can regulate their buoyancy in the water.
- When fencing , a so-called e-vest is worn to determine hits. Novel vests even show hits in video games.
- Some types of vests are useful mainly because of their many pockets, e.g. B. the safari vest or the fishing vest.
- The identification vest , often used by fire brigades and other rescue organizations, has extended compartments and pockets for radios and accessories.
- Climbing vest for mountaineers
South German and Austrian definition of vest
In some southern German regions, mainly in Saarland , parts of Rhineland-Palatinate , Upper Palatinate , Lower Bavaria , Baden , parts of Swabia and Austria , long-sleeved sweatshirts are called long-sleeved sweatshirts that have a continuous zipper and a thicker one, which is atypical for sweatshirts Material are made as a vest. They are mostly worn as transitional clothing in autumn and spring, whereby there are no limits to creativity in terms of the number of buttons and pockets, hood or material.
history
The vest was worn as an under jacket for a Justaucorps around 1675 and emerged from the doublet . In the beginning it was mostly equipped with sleeves , but in the early 18th century it became a knee-length lap vest. From the middle of the 18th century it was almost always sleeveless and only waist-length; at the end of the century it ended at waist level. Up until the early 20th century, the vest was almost an essential part of a man's suit.
The tradition of leaving the bottom button open on a suit vest is said to have originated from Edward VII of Great Britain . Evil tongues say that he always left the bottom button open because of his overweight. Because of his royal dignity, this was adopted as a fashion by his subjects.
The saying that someone has a clean slate says that the person concerned is innocent of something that has happened. Otto von Bismarck is considered to be the author of this saying .
