Cuffs on Suit Coat Sleeves

[storeynicholas]

I did not know that consideration was given to sending the fleet to Saint Petersbourg to save the Tsar. I do not suppose the King, by that time, was in any position to decide, one way or another.

Back to the previous issue being discussed, it would then have been the future Edward VII who started the fashion -- no, make that trend or custom -- of turn-ups on trousers. Rather supports my argument, what?

Could someone be kind enough to confirm?

Frog in Suit

Fashion(s), trend(s) and custom(s) - new thread? Yes, new thread.
NJS

[marcelo]

First of all, notice how much better the King's hat is than all the rest!! Secondly, both Ed VII and Geo V had sideways creases in their trousers.NJS

Sideways creases stem from the habit of folding trousers in a flat way when putting them away. The legend has it that the Prince of Wales – future King Edward VII – was once caught in a sudden rain, what compelled him to entrust a village’s tailor with the task of drying and pressing the Royal trousers. The trousers were then returned – it seems – with front creases. This precedent seems to have set a new sartorial law. Does anyone confirm the historical accuracy of this legend?

[Sator]

Furthermore, I thought formal frock coats have no outer pockets!

No frock coats don't have outer pockets. But frock overcoats do.

[HappyStroller]

Thank you, Sir, for your very helpful answer.

Looks like the Wikipedia article on frock overcoat need some additions.

what about waist seam? should the overcoat have it?

[Sator]

There is no Wikipedia article on frock overcoats. No such entry exists.

However, I did write IIRC, that the frock overcoat shares the same bodycoat construction as the frock coat.

[Scot]

Just who wears frock coats these days, apart from rather vulgar wedding parties?

[Sator]

Just who wears frock coats these days, apart from rather vulgar wedding parties?

We are talking about overcoats actually.

And vulgar? Why? It is just a variant of morning dress.

[Sator]

More pictures of "vulgar" frock coats at weddings:

[NCW]

I think the vulgar weddings mentioned were things like this:

,

and this



(which I am sure you would be quick to add are not frock coats at all).

Given their (tragic) abandonment by the court in the 30s, I would tend to agree that there is no 'real life' occasion any more when one is still acceptable; of course they were not vulgar at the time your photographs were taken, Sator.

Going back to trouser creases, I find the story interesting. Certainly Brummel would not have had creases (that I could find), so when our modern baggy trousers were invented there would have been no particular preference for front or side either way. I do not know whether the anecdote is accurate.

[storeynicholas]

I am afraid that the coats which NCW has shown us are actually available on the hallowed footways of Picccadilly and St James's. Coutts & Co bank managers were, probably, the last completely to abandon frock coats - a little while ago. Brummell's evening pantaloons were tight and buttoned above the ankle. The earliest fashionable daytime trousers often had footstraps to keep them taught and give a disincentive to sitting down - because stretch marks would appear at the knee.
NJS

[Frog in Suit]

More pictures of "vulgar" frock coats at weddings:

Are the photographs from Kind Hearts and Coronets? (They must be, now that I can see the http address). What do you all think of the accuracy of "vintage/historical" clothing in film? Has the quality improved in recent decades? Those questions might deserve another thread.....

I remember my late father, when a (English/American?) version of Ivanhoe (with a then very young Roger Moore) was shown on French television, getting very incensed at the armour and costumes being XVth century (if anything) when the action is supposed to take place in the XIIth. Who, he argued (and I am paraphrasing), would represent the Three Musketeers in the frock coats, breeches, top hats of the 1830s? Why not Napoleon and Wellington in camouflage and body armour?

I saw a young man, younger than I am anyway, wearing a frock coat on Jermyn Street this past spring. A most elegant look. And I do not hink he was a salesman in a shop. I seem to remember that they wear morning suits at Fortnum's.

Frog in Suit

[storeynicholas]

More pictures of "vulgar" frock coats at weddings:

Are the photographs from Kind Hearts and Coronets? (They must be, now that I can see the http address). What do you all think of the accuracy of "vintage/historical" clothing in film? Has the quality improved in recent decades? Those questions might deserve another thread.....

I remember my late father, when a (English/American?) version of Ivanhoe (with a then very young Roger Moore) was shown on French television, getting very incensed at the armour and costumes being XVth century (if anything) when the action is supposed to take place in the XIIth. Who, he argued (and I am paraphrasing), would represent the Three Musketeers in the frock coats, breeches, top hats of the 1830s? Why not Napoleon and Wellington in camouflage and body armour?

I saw a young man, younger than I am anyway, wearing a frock coat on Jermyn Street this past spring. A most elegant look. And I do not hink he was a salesman in a shop. I seem to remember that they wear morning suits at Fortnum's.

Frog in Suit

As it's Kind Hearts and Coronets, I am fairly sure that the actors are Dennis Price and Joan Greenwood. Costume detail in movies is frequently (infuriatingly) wrong. I think that it infuriates us because it shos a lack of respect for the subject matter and because it inhibits us in suspending our disbelief. Don't some Fortnums' staff wear red morning coats?
NJS

[Sator]

I think the vulgar weddings mentioned were things like this:

,

and this



(which I am sure you would be quick to add are not frock coats at all).

Indeed, those are horrid. And, no, they are not frock coats at all but oddly cut lounge coats. Frock coats are body coats (called so because they closely follow the line of the body) - and those are hardly that.

[storeynicholas]

They are the sort of thing that some modern 'celebrities' would choose for their weddings....dammit - do choose...
NJS

[Cufflink79]

Where's the Duke of Windsor when you need him.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79