Illustration of the week #19: The Duke's 2

[marcelo]

It seems to me that the 3 buttons in a row are too high to attach to trousers.... I don't know.

And the lower, off center buttons.....interesting but I don't understand what they are used for. ???

I have also considered the question, but I think He, as most men at the time, wore trousers with high riser. Only four buttons are visible in the Duke's shirt. In the images below, we see four in the first shirt, and only two in the second one. But maybe there is some other explanation for the mysterious row of buttons.

[Costi]

This is my speculation and perhaps Michael Alden, who saw (and photographed) some of the Duke's wardrobe, might shed some light on this.
The Duke appears to have had peculiar ideas on underwear.

Note how a pair of specially designed cotton boxer shorts is buttoned to the trousers' waistband, like a full and detachable lining. I don't know whether these trousers are singular in displaying this feature. At any rate, it makes away with the need for underwear as a DISTINCT item, incorporating it into the trousers.
However, unlike in a pair of "normal" boxers, the sides cannot overlap to form a fly. To avoid direct contact between skin and trousers, a shirt with long tails is needed:

Even if the shirt has side vents (slits), the front halves are pulled back and tend to gap when walking. This is not a problem when you wear "full" underwear, but not desirable when there is nothing else but the shirt tails between you and the trousers' fly. Therefore, moving the front opening to a side solves the problem. Practically, the boxers' fly is moved to the shirt tails! If the tails are long enough, you can tuck them under the crotch in front and they will stay in place throughout the day. I hope my detective work makes sense...
In fact, when you wear a shirt with long tails (i.e. normal dress shirt length, not like many RTW shirts which have barely 10-15 cms below your trousers' waistband) and if the buttons come almost all the way down (as most shirtmakers make them), when you go to the bathroom you need to unbutton (or unzip) the trousers' fly, UNBUTTON AT LEAST ONE SHIRT BUTTON if it is in your way and only THEN you have access to your boxers' fly (worse if you wear tangas). If the tails are long enough that you can tuck them under so they won't gap, you can do away with these lower shirt buttons (as in the Duke's shirts pictured), which is a practical idea. If I am not wrong, the Duke's design is a good piece of clothing engineering.
The strip of cloth with buttonholes is rather high, but it can serve no other purpose than the one described by Marcelo (and this is not speculation, because contemporary dress shirts have it, too). It secures the position of the shirt, making sure there is no unsightly bulging in front and that the tails stay in place inside your trousers.

[marcelo]

Costi, thanks for this short essay on the logic of the Duke’s trousers and shirts. Your text is a bit of a master piece! But I still have some questions: who made the Duke’s trousers with these features? Was it Mr Harris from NY? Or was it Mr Scholte, being the trouser shown in your post complementary to the coat seen at: http://www.thelondonlounge.net/forum/vi ... 100#p44773 ? I think it is rather the second option, but I don't know if the Duke would wear tweed trousers in Bahamas. The shirts at issue here were intended to be worn in Bahamas, with trousers made by Harris.

In the thread on Frederick Scholte (http://www.thelondonlounge.net/forum/vi ... it=scholte ), there is an excerpt from the Duke’s sartorial reminiscences. He says rather rashly: “I never had a pair of trousers made by Scholte. I disliked his cut of them…” He then adds that when he was Governor of Bahams his trousers were made in NY, by a tailor called Harris, while the coats were still made in England. The Duchess named that “Pants across the Sea.” Now, I wonder if Scholte would not have considered that piece of trousers engineering rather OTT and simply refused to make them. The interesting thing is that the garments on sale at Kerry Tailor Auctions were made by Harris, the same tailor mentioned in his sartorial memoirs. Maybe (maybe!) he, Mr Harris, was the creator of that puzzling conjunction of trousers and shirts. But who else was a client at Harris’?

It is also interesting to notice that although the Duke preferred belts rather than suspenders, his trousers had a high riser - which is actually more elegant and flattering to one’s torso than the worldwide tendency to wear trousers with a very low riser.

[Costi]

It is also interesting to notice that although the Duke preferred belts rather than suspenders, his trousers had a high riser - which is actually more elegant and flattering to one’s torso than the worldwide tendency to wear trousers with a very low riser.

Marcelo, I think we should all write that three times in our notebooks. Every day!

As far as I recall (I think from Michael's original post where he first posted that photograph) the pants were, indeed, made across the Sea. Since we can find in his Paris or London wardrobe pants made in the US, he may have brought some English-made shirts to the US with him. But beyond that, since underwear (boxers and shirts) are made by a shirtmaker an trousers - by a tailor, I think it is more probable that the shirt-trousers-boxers system was the idea of one who had a general view on the ensemble: the wearer himself. I repeat that this is all detective work based on circumstantial evidence...

[marcelo]

Costi,
thanks for this. Indeed, we can only count on speculations here.

[angelo]

Costi wrote

As far as I recall (I think from Michael's original post where he first posted that photograph) the pants were, indeed, made across the Sea. Since we can find in his Paris or London wardrobe pants made in the US, he may have brought some English-made shirts to the US with him. But beyond that, since underwear (boxers and shirts) are made by a shirtmaker an trousers - by a tailor, I think it is more probable that the shirt-trousers-boxers system was the idea of one who had a general view on the ensemble: the wearer himself. I repeat that this is all detective work based on circumstantial evidence...

Costi,
although the Duke's long tailed shirts with no buttons in the lower part appear to be ideated (as brilliantly explained by You )to work perfectly with the special boxers buttoned to the trousers in order to facilitate the bathroom necessities (and to this aim also the fly-front zipper ,like that present on the Duke's trousers from Michael's original post as well in some others, could have been instrumental), it does not seem that those shirts should had been necessarily worn only with that kind of boxers.
Indeed , the operation of simply sliding on the left ,like a curtain, the left unbottoned lower part of the shirt could have been also done withouth losing its practical function, by wearing the shirt over normal boxers.

Angelo

[Costi]

Absolutely, Angelo! I just remembered this boxer/trouser design and tried to put two and two together. But you are right, the shirt design maintains its functionality when worn with normal boxers, too (IF this is its functionality).

[alden]

I really like the design of the collar, plenty of tie space, perfect opening, perfect angle.....study it

Michael

[alden]

I have given the picture of the shirts to shirtmaker Pierre Duboin and he immediately recognized the design, common at the turn of the century. He mentioned they were normally pulled over the head like a night shirt. He said they were made for men who did not like their shirts to billow out from the trouser and who wore high rise trousers. Sound familiar? Do we know anyone like that?

So I am going to have one made just like the blue shirt on the right.

We shall see.

Michael

[Costi]

Michael,

Here is what it might look like:






It's on a ladies' dummy, but that was the only one available at my shirtmaker's earlier this evening.
I'll report more after wearing it.

[couch]

A little earlier than Windsor, but there is a lovely scene early in Volker Schlöndorff's movie "Swann in Love" (Un Amour de Swann) in which Jeremy Irons as Charles Swann is being dressed by his valet. He dons a white tunic shirt of this basic type (perhaps without the offset opening at the bottom front) exactly as M. Duboin describes: it's slipped over his upstretched arms like a nightshirt. The valet is extremely deft and Swann extremely languid, almost bored.

It's been a long time since I've seen the film; I don't know how accurate the sartorial detail is but I suspect it is very good. The overall impression of the men's clothes is about as meticulously stylish as I've seen in one film. It feels quite true to the era and the place.