Cuffs on Suit Coat Sleeves

[NCW]

In fact Sator, those stills of Dennis Price put me to thinking about another coat of his in that same film. How would you analyse this:





It is clearly checked; though I know the Victorians did have these, the combination of pockets and full skirts (they are not cutaway like a morning coat) seems hard to fit in with your article. The right pocket is clearly seen in the third picture. There is no breast pocket, and it is being worn as an evening indoor coat.

EDIT: I see half a dozen people posted while I was getting the shots here. Imagine this post to go just after my last one, before the comments on film costume's anachronisms. This may be one of them.

[Sator]

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.....

This thread is really beginning to diversify!

Yes indeed, those shots are from Kind Hearts. I am astonished by the historical accuracy of Edwardian dress in this film. Then again, back in the London of the 1950s, you would have been able to find elderly tailors who had first hand experience of the Edwardian era and who could still cut a frock coat. That said, there was good and bad Edwardian tailoring, and the examples seen in this film are all jaw dropping. In almost every scene the main character wears a new - blatantly obviously bespoke - wardrobe. I would estimate the cost today to replicate the main character's wardrobe would be:

Prince Albert 4500 GBP
Matching waistcoat + fancy waistcoat 800
Single breasted 3 piece frock coat suit 5000
Single breasted window pane check frock coat suit 5000
Dress suit 4800
3 Piece Lounge suit 3000
Summer lounge suit 3000
Smoking jacket 3000
Inverness cloak 3000
Tweed hunting jacket 2500
Tweed Norfolk jacket 2500
House coat 4500

These are all guestimates in GBP. I imagine many Savile Row firms would charge more because their inexperience in making some of these garments would mean it would take them a lot longer to make and get right. The amount of time and effort they took in getting the wardrobe right is something you never see these days and is simply astonishing. In modern films they obvious wear what look like hired RTW historic costumes. Not even Darcy was dashingly well dressed in the last attempt at realising Pride and Prejudice.

One day I will start a thread devoted to Kind Hearts. I've been planning to for a long time and have a lot of images ready to go.

[Sator]

In fact Sator, those stills of Dennis Price put me to thinking about another coat of his in that same film. How would you analyse this:





It is clearly checked; though I know the Victorians did have these, the combination of pockets and full skirts (they are not cutaway like a morning coat) seems hard to fit in with your article. The right pocket is clearly seen in the third picture. There is no breast pocket, and it is being worn as an evening indoor coat.

Yes, it is checked. Yes, that means it is a different garment to that worn as daytime full dress. That said, most fashion plates of the period show informal frock coat suits with the coat cut without outer pockets:



As to whether it is historically accurate to have an informal frock coat with outer pockets, it is difficult to say. I am sure they based their models on period fashion plates and greater freedom was probably permissible for the more informal variant. On full dress versions, the rules were clear: as on dress coats, there should be no side pockets.

[NCW]

What colour is the check? I assume something dark grey with lighter stripes. Surely they did not make frock coats in tweed?

Also, might not some of the clothes used still belonged to the actor in that era (’49)? I guess that the wardrobe cost for a full-scale production like The Lord of the Rings must be higher still anyway, as all the clothes there are not only bespoke, but so great is the attention to detail that very many copies are made for each actor’s clothes, in various states of grime, so that as for instance fight scenes progress, between shots the actors can change into successively more worn clothes. At least with a period production, only a few coats are needed (though as you say, Kind Hearts does have a remarkable diversity of settings, from the boating, to the country, and town; morning, noon, and night).

[Sator]

Alas, no textual commentary exists. I don't see why it couldn't be made of tweed for informal wear. In Kind Hearts, the window pane frock coat suit is worn on a social visit to a lady's country estate.



In his first visit he wears a tweed Norfolk.

The way I see it, we today generally wear lounge coats like they use to wear frock coats. Informal frock coats are like modern sports coats.

The only text I have found for the cloths used for frock coats concerns itself with full dress frocks - broadcloth, worsted, cashmere or vicuña, in black or charcoal grey. Navy is mentioned in one text.

[storeynicholas]

What I'd like to know is: how did the bounder afford all this gear before he got his inheritance?
NJS

[Sator]

Admittedly he does start out wearing a humble lounge suit as a store clerk, before slowly murdering his way up the social ladder to avenge his mother. With each step that he takes to getting closer to becoming Earl, his dress becomes increasingly extravagant with over-the-top dandified displays of different frock coats etc etc etc. Each of his victims is played to hilarious effect by Alex Guinness - a role that helped establish his acting career.

[storeynicholas]

Admittedly he does start out wearing a humble lounge suit as a store clerk, before slowly murdering his way up the social ladder to avenge his mother. With each step that he takes to getting closer to becoming Earl, his dress becomes increasingly extravagant with over-the-top dandified displays of different frock coats etc etc etc. Each of his victims is played to hilarious effect by Alex Guinness - a role that helped establish his acting career.

Exactly, he has no money and no credit, so how does he do it? My question is not in the least degree frivolous as the anwser might well have a practical application..............
NJS

[Sator]

BTW here is yet another interesting case of a frock coat with outer side pockets:



It comes from an original 1854 Parisian fashion plate that I own.

Note the figure on the left is wearing a frock coat with side pockets. Notice the 3/4 length suggesting an overcoat. However, it is a coat - not an overcoat - because all he has on underneath it is a waistcoat.

The figure in the middle is wearing both a frock coat and frock overcoat. The figure on the right is wearing a black frock overcoat and is just the centre figure seen from behind. You know that it is an overcoat because it has double vents. The real give away to suggest the frock overcoat has double vents is actually the seam running between the two buttons on the back and lack of centre seam down the back of the upper part of the coat, cut as one piece (my word what detail they show on these plates!). I know because I own tailoring texts describing this construction technique. Interestingly, outer pockets have been omitted from the frock overcoat.

The reason that the frock coat on the left has side pockets and is longer is that the frock coat may have evolved out of a type of overcoat. Or at least there was an overlap between coat and overcoat earlier in its evolution. Only once firmly established as daytime dress clothes do the rules about no outer pockets and dark conservative colours fully kick in. Note that both the figures on the left and centre are wearing BROWN frock coats.

[Frog in Suit]

Admittedly he does start out wearing a humble lounge suit as a store clerk, before slowly murdering his way up the social ladder to avenge his mother. With each step that he takes to getting closer to becoming Earl, his dress becomes increasingly extravagant with over-the-top dandified displays of different frock coats etc etc etc. Each of his victims is played to hilarious effect by Alex Guinness - a role that helped establish his acting career.

Exactly, he has no money and no credit, so how does he do it? My question is not in the least degree frivolous as the anwser might well have a practical application..............
NJS

Simple: he did not pay his tailor. Given his ever-rising expectations, the latter may have been happy to oblige, at least for a time...

Kind Hearts and Coronets is one of my favourite films of all time. "I shot an arrow in the air//She came to earth in Berkeley Square". "The port is with you, My Lord" which we often use when lunching or dining with English friends and the current bottle seems to be taking root at the other end of the table....

As Sator so justly states, in 1949 there would have been tailors who still had direct practical knowledge of proper Edwardian wear. There also would have been enough wearers who remembered the way men dressed when they were youths or young adults. There may even have been old fuddy-duddies (ahem, mature men with a somewhat rigid sense of form) who dressed in a not too dissimilar way into the early fifties.

I am glad Sator can support the accuracy of the film's costume. I am also very interested in his deciphering for us the various levels of propriety and formality of the garments being worn, and their adequacy to the social occasions being depicted. Living in the early twenty-first century, we (if I may presume not to be alone in that) have no longer the code to the meaning of the different article of clothing. How does one distinguish through their dress, and a century later, an overdressed bounder from a traditionally-minded member of the professions living in a provincial town? I am reminded of my ignorance of much of the symbolism in Mediaeval or Renaissance religious iconography. I know that a woman with a halo and a wheel is Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Sebastian has his arrows, martyrs have palm leaves, etc....There is so much more that I just miss without even realizing that there is anything to miss. We have to study in order to re-learn what would have been blindingly (perhaps even boringly) obvious to contemporary viewers.

May I finish by suggesting a thread, perhaps more than that, if Sator would not mind: a de-coding (with illustrations of course) of formality and propriety through clothing, through time, through social levels, evening v. day, country v. town....A tall order, I know.

Please forgive my meandering.

Frog in Suit

[storeynicholas]

Admittedly he does start out wearing a humble lounge suit as a store clerk, before slowly murdering his way up the social ladder to avenge his mother. With each step that he takes to getting closer to becoming Earl, his dress becomes increasingly extravagant with over-the-top dandified displays of different frock coats etc etc etc. Each of his victims is played to hilarious effect by Alex Guinness - a role that helped establish his acting career.

Exactly, he has no money and no credit, so how does he do it? My question is not in the least degree frivolous as the anwser might well have a practical application..............
NJS

Simple: he did not pay his tailor. Given his ever-rising expectations, the latter may have been happy to oblige, at least for a time...

Kind Hearts and Coronets is one of my favourite films of all time. "I shot an arrow in the air//She came to earth in Berkeley Square". "The port is with you, My Lord" which we often use when lunching or dining with English friends and the current bottle seems to be taking root at the other end of the table....

As Sator so justly states, in 1949 there would have been tailors who still had direct practical knowledge of proper Edwardian wear. There also would have been enough wearers who remembered the way men dressed when they were youths or young adults. There may even have been old fuddy-duddies (ahem, mature men with a somewhat rigid sense of form) who dressed in a not too dissimilar way into the early fifties.

I am glad Sator can support the accuracy of the film's costume. I am also very interested in his deciphering for us the various levels of propriety and formality of the garments being worn, and their adequacy to the social occasions being depicted. Living in the early twenty-first century, we (if I may presume not to be alone in that) have no longer the code to the meaning of the different article of clothing. How does one distinguish through their dress, and a century later, an overdressed bounder from a traditionally-minded member of the professions living in a provincial town? I am reminded of my ignorance of much of the symbolism in Mediaeval or Renaissance religious iconography. I know that a woman with a halo and a wheel is Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Sebastian has his arrows, martyrs have palm leaves, etc....There is so much more that I just miss without even realizing that there is anything to miss. We have to study in order to re-learn what would have been blindingly (perhaps even boringly) obvious to contemporary viewers.

May I finish by suggesting a thread, perhaps more than that, if Sator would not mind: a de-coding (with illustrations of course) of formality and propriety through clothing, through time, through social levels, evening v. day, country v. town....A tall order, I know.

Please forgive my meandering.

Frog in Suit

It may not be my favourite film but it's a fine film - a very fine film indeed! I support Frog in Suit in this suggestion and I have one question for Sator on the latest picture - on the back of the coat on the right - when you say 2 vents do you mean an actual vent on the right hand side and a pleat on the left - because, surely, otherwise this would form an open, narrow flap? Finally, I especially like this picture because at least two of these fellows are about to fumigate the air in a time and place when and where no one would in the least mind!! Rosbif for Olde England!!!
NJS

[Sator]

May I finish by suggesting a thread, perhaps more than that, if Sator would not mind: a de-coding (with illustrations of course) of formality and propriety through clothing, through time, through social levels, evening v. day, country v. town....A tall order, I know.

OK we need a new thread devoted to Kind Hearts.

When I have a chance I will finally get around to writing it. It will look spectacular and I will try to include social commentary on the language of dress codified into the film.

[Sator]

I have one question for Sator on the latest picture - on the back of the coat on the right - when you say 2 vents do you mean an actual vent on the right hand side and a pleat on the left - because, surely, otherwise this would form an open, narrow flap?

OK you've forced me to read the old German textbook properly now. I got it a bit wrong while thumbing through the book - it is still only single vented. Here is how the back of a frock overcoat is constructed. Note that the German is Gehrock-Paletot - paletot being, I believe, a French word for an overcoat. Another French term used in English is surtout, which although in French it denotes any overcoat (it goes 'on everything' - 'sur tout'), it is sometimes used in English (but not in German!) as another word for either a frock coat OR a frock overcoat! I suspect this betrays the origin of the frock coat as a type of overcoat.

Here it is:





From Die Zuschneidekunst Herrenkleidung. . See my Bibliography for details.

[Sator]

And here is a close-up of the frock overcoat in that fashion plate for comparison. As you can see, the construction is identical to that detailed in the German tailoring text:



Back panel constructed as one piece with no centre seam, and strongly overlapping panels with one faux vent consisting of a blind seam on the left and a true vent on the right. In fact, the fashion plate is detailed enough that you can see the precise details of its construction.

[Frog in Suit]

Note that the German is Gehrock-Paletot - paletot being, I believe, a French word for an overcoat. Another French term used in English is surtout, which although in French it denotes any overcoat (it goes 'on everything' - 'sur tout'), it is sometimes used in English (but not in German!) as another word for either a frock coat OR a frock overcoat! I suspect this betrays the origin of the frock coat as a type of overcoat.

From Littré (the dictionary of the French language, 1860-1876, still very useful):


PALETOT (pa-le-to ; le t ne se prononce pas et ne se lie pas) s. m.

    
1° Vêtement de drap moelleux et chaud que les hommes portent, tantôt seul, tantôt, et c'est le plus ordinaire, sur un autre vêtement. Paletot doublé en soie.
    Paletot sac, paletot non ajusté à la taille, espèce de paletot d'été.
    Il y a aussi des paletots pour femme.
    
2° Casaque sans manches qui sert aux pêcheurs de la Manche.
    
3° Variété de tulipe bigarrée.

HISTORIQUE :

    XVe s. Le duc a soixante deux archers pour son corp, ils ont tous les ans palletots d'orfavrerie richement chargez, DE LABORDE, Émaux, p. 429. Lequel Pierre retourna devers icellui Gilles, et le frappa de son coustel ou bras, tant qu'il perça son palletot, DU CANGE, palt-rock. Les suppliants issirent de la maison en leurs pourpoints ou palletocqs à tout leurs bonnetz, ID. ib. Une jaquette ou palletot à vestir, ID. ib.
    XVIe s. De moëlle de jonc il portoit un chapeau ; En lieu de paletoc se vestoit de la peau D'un chevreul marqueté de couleur noire et blanche, RONS. 742.

So: a garment of soft (springy) cloth which men wear, sometimes alone, but more ordinarily, over another one. A "paletot" lined with silk.
Paletot-sac ("bag or sack paletot"): an unwaisted paletot, a kind of summer paletot.
There are also "paletots" for women.


2. SURTOUT (sur-tou), s. m.

    
1° Sorte de vêtement que l'on met sur les autres habits. Le duc de la Feuillade revint poudré et paré d'un beau surtout rouge, SAINT-SIMON 12, 142. L'habit est vraiment leste, et des plus à la mode ; Pour un surtout de chasse il me sera commode, REGNARD, Ménechm. I, 2. Enfin, un jour qu'un surtout emprunté Vêtit à cru ma triste nudité, VOLT. le Pauvre diable.
    Par extension. Afin d'interdire encore mieux tout accès à la lumière, je l'ai recouvert, comme le second, d'un surtout de papier bleu, BONNET, Us. feuill. 2e mém.
    Fig. Quel surtout que ce rhumatisme ! SÉV. 22 janv. 1690. Depuis que mon mari, par grâce singulière, D'un surtout de sapin que l'on appelle bière, Dont on sort rarement, a voulu se munir, J'ai fait voeu d'être veuve, et je le veux tenir, REGNARD, le Bal, sc. 4.
    
2° Grande pièce de vaisselle, ordinairement d'argent ou de cuivre doré, qu'on sert sur les grandes tables, et sur laquelle on place les salières, les sucriers, les poivrières et tout ce qui est d'usage dans le cours d'un repas ; on y met aussi des figures, des vases de fleurs, de fruits. On a inventé des surtouts pour le dessert qui sont de très bon goût, VOLT. Lett. à Catherine II, 2 oct. 1770. Il y a des gens qui vous mettent sur la table un grand surtout où il est défendu de toucher, ID. Lett. d'Autré, 6 sept. 1765.
    
3° Espèce de petite charrette fort légère, faite en forme de grande manne, et qui sert à porter du bagage.
    
4° Moule qui recouvre les autres moules du modèle d'une cloche et qui doit soutenir l'action du feu.
    
5° Espèce d'entonnoir en paille renversé dont les ruches sont recouvertes.

So: a kind of garment worn over other clothes.

If I may, I would add that paletot (I seem to remember that in my youth, it was used to designate a woollen cardigan) sems to have been in current use when the dictionary was produced. Surtout appears historical, even by then.

I hope this helps.

Frog in Suit