The London Lounge

What ever happened to the waisted coat?

The waist seam started to make a regular appearance on dress coats and frock coats from around the early 1820s. It provided the tailor with a way of making coats that had a cleaner fit through the waist followed by a distinctive flair of the skirt in a way that can never be quite equaled by darts (or a ‘fish’ as they were once called) alone.

The following two patterns shows dress coat patterns from before and after the introduction of the waist seam:



Waisted coats dominate the sartorial landscape of the 19th century. Even when the exaggerated waist suppression and flare of the skirt of the 1830-40s went out of fashion, the waist seam remained as a way of permitted a more sculpted look which flattered the figure and showed off the abilities of the tailor.

Here is a picture from 1833-34 advertising Benjamin Read, a tailor on Oxford St in London:



Even today the Italians call a morning coat a “tight” - a sleekly fitted waistline was considered the mark of good tailoring.

The point at which things changed for the worse was at the introduction of the lounge coat. The idea was supposedly greater “comfort”. Early lounge coats lacked even darts and were fitted loosely likes potato sacks. The German still use the term “Sakko” and in America it gave rise to the term “sack suit”.

However, what really made the potato sack coat popular was the rise and rise of a ready-to-wear industry. Sacks needed less fitting and could tolerate approximate fit, whereas the sharply fitted waisted coat was much less tolerant of inexactitude.

Sacks were easier to tailor too if they were too big. Tailoring waisted coats is always a much bigger job – at times bordering on a complete recut. The sack was the answer to the needs of the age of mass production. In the name of ‘progress’ this has latterly been taken a step further and industries can manufacture huge amounts of glued potato sacks for mass consumption.

As a consequence waisted coats with knee length skirts (dress coats and morning coats) have become relegated to the status of formal wear only, and even then their survival remains constantly under threat. The frock coat has fared the worst, becoming extinct in the late 1930s.

One thing that has been forgotten however is that there was a transitional period in the late 19th to early 20th centuries when there arose a type of waisted coat half way between the lounge coat and the long skirted waisted coat: the short skirted waisted coat. It is a coat close enough to the lounge coat in style to be informal yet allows the skill of the bespoke tailor to impart to it an old-world sleekness.

The interesting thing is that nobody really seemed to quite agree what to call it: a morning coat, a lounge coat, a cutaway frock coat, a walking coat etc. Confusion reigns and then the style disappears.

Here is the picture, which really set me off thinking:



The example comes from an edition of Monsieur dated 1922.

Not quite a lounge coat, and not quite a morning coat. The pockets which hang off the waist seam are characteristic.

Here is an American example from 1897:



They just call it a suit there but in the following example from 1866 it is called a New York walking coat:



This picture also shows how the construction of the back is the same as a morning coat or dress coat:



The skirt here is longer but the style is fundamentally the same – clearly informal in style, here made of fabric with a herringbone weave, probably tweed.

The following two examples from the Tailor and Cutter 1869 (drawn by one M. Alden!) are some of the finest examples which show the superior fit through the waist permitted by the waist seam:





Of further interest was the popularity in England of various types of ‘lounge coats’ whose styles carried the names of universities, some of which had and others lacked a waist seam:



In most pictures matching trousers and waistcoat appear to be the more common way of wearing this style:



Would it be outrageous to suggest that the bespoke tailor today expends much of his time on a type of coat least suited to showing off his potential? For the lounge coat is the coat of the age of mass production par excellence. Rather perhaps the tailor's truest worth is demonstrated in his ability to cut a waisted coat. If today the demand for a dress coats, frock coats and morning coats seems to be minimal - perhaps there is room for the reintroduction of the waist seam to the lounge coat?

While I would hesitate to head off to work in a morning coat, many of these examples of short skirted waisted coats are close enough in style to the modern lounge coat to be quite wearable in this day and age. The style would permit a bespoke tailor to use the waist seam to rediscover the sleek old world bespoke fit through the waist that this technique permits, thus eliminating the last vestiges of RTW potato sack slopiness inherent to the 'sack coat'.

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Interesting post, Sator, thanks. 87-year-old, Torino-trained, Joseph Centofanti in Phila. refers to the style of any coat with a relatively natural shoulder slope, a distinctly shaped waist, and some cupping at the hips as a "British walker" style. Perhaps this harks back to the waisted walking coats you reproduce.

As to reviving the waist seam, I'd be interested to hear technical opinions from our distinguished tailors. A few tentative observations of my own:

A drawback to the waist seam is that it's a horizontal line that cuts the coat and the figure, interrupting the vertical line. To my eye, the best-proportioned coats you show are the first sketch and the herringbone New York Walker, in which the skirt is just slightly longer than the body. Those waist-seam coats with skirts shorter than the body--especially if the horizontal seam sits below the waist near the hips, as it does in several of your illustrations--look stubby to my eye. Rather than accentuating the male V they draw attention to the hip-belly zone. The classic hunting pink coat gets this just right with its slightly longer flared skirt below the waist seam.

The waist seam is least visible in a matte black cloth, but even there it seems to me least interrupting when cut away, as in a morning coat or evening dress coat, or when a longer skirt balances the body and lengthens the line (frock or your NY Walker). In midtones, unless highly textured or patterned, it would be more noticeable still.

Then there's the twentieth century's focus on the draping qualities of the cloth and on the subtlety of effect--modernist sprezzatura, as it were. My impression is that using side pieces, darts, and "working" the cloth to shape it, it was possible to get about as much waist suppression and skirt shaping as one wanted without a waist seam (unless you needed a wide-circumference skirt). Restraint here is more a function of the client's figure, or of tact in not wanting to appear too flash, than of technical limitations, as I understand it. Think of the cut of the Italian co-respondent Tonetti's clothes in "The Gay Divorcee"--they were meant to be too form-fitting and in slightly vulgar taste, in contrast to Astaire's perfectly-judged drape. What the waist seam appears to make easier is a coat that hugs the small of the back--but the desirability of that effect, and the consequent emphasis on the seat, has waxed and waned historically and with locale, as you would know better than most of us.

In most contemporary siltuations, a coat cut as closely as a 19th-century military dress tunic would look like costume--not that I don't regret the fact at times. But there's a reason Fraser (and Thomas Hughes before him) called his anti-hero "Flashman." Besides, a lot of fellows needed corsets to fit into those tunics, and who wants to go there?

To update the look, you could try doing something similiar to a Norfolk Jacket with the waist seam as the belt on the jacket would hide the seam.

Just a thought.

I love both looks. I think that both coats could be worn today, but more in the function of a light overcoat. Especially the first coat has something timeless.
Furthermore I like the style of wearing "slim fitting" gloves, all the little pockets (especially the small pocket attached on the left pocket in the first picture) and those button Boots/Gamaschenstiefeletten (that's how they are called, Sator, isn't it?).

Best regards

Degendorff

this might not be the fora to mention such a person but i have seen Spencer Hart do these for Robbie Williams and also in his store he has versions of then too!

I think these are wonderful coats, and I have often been tempted to make one...elegant and interesting...but the if one wears it to an event, even a daytime one, one would look so different that one stands out...one doesn't want that, does one? Even a morning coat makes one look out of place, except in one or two events one can think of...

couch wrote:
A drawback to the waist seam is that it's a horizontal line that cuts the coat and the figure, interrupting the vertical line. To my eye, the best-proportioned coats you show are the first sketch and the herringbone New York Walker, in which the skirt is just slightly longer than the body. Those waist-seam coats with skirts shorter than the body--especially if the horizontal seam sits below the waist near the hips, as it does in several of your illustrations--look stubby to my eye. Rather than accentuating the male V they draw attention to the hip-belly zone. The classic hunting pink coat gets this just right with its slightly longer flared skirt below the waist seam.

The waist seam is least visible in a matte black cloth, but even there it seems to me least interrupting when cut away, as in a morning coat or evening dress coat, or when a longer skirt balances the body and lengthens the line (frock or your NY Walker). In midtones, unless highly textured or patterned, it would be more noticeable still.

Then there's the twentieth century's focus on the draping qualities of the cloth and on the subtlety of effect--modernist sprezzatura, as it were. My impression is that using side pieces, darts, and "working" the cloth to shape it, it was possible to get about as much waist suppression and skirt shaping as one wanted without a waist seam (unless you needed a wide-circumference skirt). Restraint here is more a function of the client's figure, or of tact in not wanting to appear too flash, than of technical limitations, as I understand it. Think of the cut of the Italian co-respondent Tonetti's clothes in "The Gay Divorcee"--they were meant to be too form-fitting and in slightly vulgar taste, in contrast to Astaire's perfectly-judged drape. What the waist seam appears to make easier is a coat that hugs the small of the back--but the desirability of that effect, and the consequent emphasis on the seat, has waxed and waned historically and with locale, as you would know better than most of us.

Interesting observations and comments. Thank you.

In my experience waist seams are much less obvious than what you see in these illustrations which accentuate the presence of the seam to bring its presence to the tailors attention. Customers used to take these sorts of fashion plates to their tailors to have the latest fashion in coats cut for them.

If you look at someone in a dress coat or a morning coat you have to look fairly carefullly to discern the presence of the waist seam. However, if you ever try on a bespoke morning coat made for someone else it really feels wrong. The height of the waist seam and the whole shape of the coat just feels like it is cut for someone with totally different proportions. When you ask yourself how you would alter the coat to fit you, you realise you are looking at a major recut. Then it dawns on you that the waisted coat is something whose pedigree is through and through bespoke.

As for whether the waist seam necessarily results in a tight fitting silhouette, it is clear that was not necessarily always the case. Throughout the 1870-80s the cut was much looser. However, the waist seam construction was still used to allow the coat to be cut to mold to the wearers proportions better - included for those of stout proportions. The waist seam simply allows a greater control over the silhouette that darts and alterations to the basic pattern just can't beat.

Lastly as to the question of whether some of the pictured coats look like costume, the answer is: Yes of course! The width and lengths of lapels, the altitudes of the button stance, the longer lengths of coats are all terribly old fashioned. If reproduced literally in every detail, any of the examples would look like costume. No doubt about it.

Naturally, nobody should be quite so literal in adopting every detail of such historic fashions except as costume. I would modernise it completely by having the button stance, lapel widths, and coat lengths made exactly the same as per my usual lounge coat except with a waist seam construction. It should be different enough to be striking yet similar enough to be discreet.

As for drape I tend to regard it as a modern abomination anyway. It is a concession to the potato sack aesthetic of the RTW lounge coat as adopted by the bespoke tailor. I know others will disagree violently but I prefer the smartly fitted look of the 19th century - at its finest a really sleekly fitted style without costumey 'tightness'.

This picture epitomises what I mean - look at how exquisitely fitted the coat is through the back:



Is it 'tight' and affected? Never!

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Here is another illustration dating from c.1870 published in the Tailor and Cutter of a shirt skirted coat with a waist seam:



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I can add little but enthusiastic agreement to this thread. Whilst I prefer such a coat with a long skirt not to be cut away, this is just my personal preference. I love the proportions of the 'pink' hunting coat, and wonder if a waisted garment with a modern lower opening, but similar calf-length skirt, would work in a summer cotton, perhaps with a vent and/or pleats.

I would disagree with the idea the waist seam distracts the eye, but admit this is only with the experience of modern formal garments in black. What struck me was the 'downward-sloping' (not level) appearance of the waist seams in the illustrations, perhaps a trick of the angle or posture of the model.

Please sign me up to your campaign! I end on a quote from J.G. Farrell's _The Siege of Krishnapur_, 1973. From p. 22, Flamingo pbk. ed., 1985;

"Now George Fleury and his sister had arrived in Calcutta and Mrs Dunstable had heard that he was making quite an impression. Even his clothes, said to be the last word in fashion, had become the talk of the city. It seemed that Fleury had been seen wearing what was positively the first 'Tweedside' lounging jacket to make its appearance in the Bengal Presidency; this garment, daringly unwaisted, hung as straight as a sack of potatoes and was arousing the envy of every beau on the Chowringhee."

The recent B.B.C. Radio 4 dramatisation of this novel summarised the passage with an established member of the Anglo-Indian community saying, quite correctly, "What in G-d's name is that he's wearing?!"

Gentlemen, I rest our case.