to match or not to match?

[Guest]

If one has the privilege to commission a bespoke velvet smoking jacket, velvet slippers and velvet smoking cap should one have all three done in matching color (i.e. wine jacket, wine embroidered slippers and wine embroidered cap) or in different colors (i.e. bottle green jacket, black embroidered slippers and black embroidered cap)?

Thank you

[Guest]

Why not run to a velvet smoking suit? plus slippers and hat - possibly easier on the eye for it all to be the same but why not have contrasting hat and shoes - but matching each other. So a blue suit and black hat and slippers - or green suit and wine hat and slippers etc.
NJS

[Guest]

Well a velvet suit is too much for me (i would feel like i came out of a 70s film). Its just that I have the option to make all three now and eventhough I am not a fan of matching stuff (at least in my everyday life) I have a feeling these three need to be matched...

[Guest]

I agree that if you have the jacket, hat and slippers only, they probably need to match.
NJS

[Guest]

Are you planning on appearing in some sort of Edwardian play? I can't otherwise imagine why someone would wish to acquire such a collection of garments. Ah well, each to their own. (This should get NJS going )

[Guest]

I am fairly sure that know who this is from the use of if you had smokey green velvet outfit made you might look like a Beatrix Potter character called......Jeremy......
NJS

[Guest]

I am fairly sure that know who this is from the use of if you had smokey green velvet outfit made you might look like a Beatrix Potter character called......Jeremy......
NJS

Wrong I'm afraid.

[Guest]

Sorry, but what is this about a 'smoking suit'? There is no time for a full change between port and pipe, so you would never (ever) wear velvet trousers (day or night in fact). There is no need for the slippers to have colour, but I feel that if they do it should be very dark and matching the jacket. I have never actually seen anyone wearing a smoking cap though in real life, so I could not comment on that.

[Guest]

Well's there no need change into a smoking suit because, the cap aside, all of it could be worn to dine at home.
NJS

[Guest]

In my opinion true eleganca does not need an exasperate matching like that You are looking for (i.e jacket ,slippers and cap in the same colour). In the drawing below, published on Esquire Magazine in 1934 , You can admire in which understated and elegant way a red velvet DB smoking jacket can be worn in the proper way for an informal dinner party at home.

Angelo

[Guest]

Angelo- this is not my idea of a smoking jacket; this is a dinner jacket in a different from usual hue. Originally, smoking suits were designed primarily for - well - smoking in and comprised a top to toe outfit, shielding the outward body and saving other clothes from the strong tobaccos that used to be permitted - hence the smoking cap to keep the fumes out of the hair. Here isan of examples of what I regard as a smoking jacket. It is a modern example from Turnbull & Asser. A whole suit would have to be bespoke. Churchill used to wear a velvet version of his siren suit, sometimes, in the evening. That was made by Turnbull & Asser.






[img][img]http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55 ... okingJ.jpg[/img]
A recent Turnbull & Asser example of a smoking jacket.
Smoking jackets/suits are only ever appropriate for the host at home, when dining with family and close friends on High Days and Holidays - probably, these days Christmas, Easter and family anniversaries.
NJS[/img]

[Guest]

Smoking jackets/suits are only ever appropriate for the host at home, when dining with family and close friends on High Days and Holidays - probably, these days Christmas, Easter and family anniversaries.
NJS

I should conclude, therefore, that the gentleman on the left side is the host, while the poor man on the right side, devoid of any protection to repel the fumes of his host, is the guest. But something puzzles me: what is a bartender doing in the back of the room on the occasion of a family gathering, and why does the host intend to prevent his guest from turning the newspaper into a mess?

marcelo

[Guest]

I should conclude, therefore, that the gentleman on the left side is the host, while the poor man on the right side, devoid of any protection to repel the fumes of his host, is the guest. But something puzzles me: what is a bartender doing in the back of the room on the occasion of a family gathering, and why does the host intend to prevent his guest from turning the newspaper into a mess?

Well, the man on right is wearing a green smoking jacket (note the frogging). They are presumably at their club (which, depending on the club, may count as 'at home'; after all, for many Victorians the club was more home than the real one, not that smoking jackets were around per se then).

Even these days, there are still a few bastions of 'dressing for dinner' (mostly old country houses) where a smoking jacket might see fairly regular wear.

NCW

[Guest]

Well, the man on right is wearing a green smoking jacket (note the frogging). They are presumably at their club (which, depending on the club, may count as 'at home'; after all, for many Victorians the club was more home than the real one, not that smoking jackets were around per se then).

Indeed, the man on right side is no less protected than the first one. I admit I had not realized it. The club hypothesis is quite elucidative. Thanks!
marcelo

[Guest]

I should conclude, therefore, that the gentleman on the left side is the host, while the poor man on the right side, devoid of any protection to repel the fumes of his host, is the guest. But something puzzles me: what is a bartender doing in the back of the room on the occasion of a family gathering, and why does the host intend to prevent his guest from turning the newspaper into a mess?

Well, the man on right is wearing a green smoking jacket (note the frogging). They are presumably at their club (which, depending on the club, may count as 'at home'; after all, for many Victorians the club was more home than the real one, not that smoking jackets were around per se then).

Even these days, there are still a few bastions of 'dressing for dinner' (mostly old country houses) where a smoking jacket might see fairly regular wear.

NCW

I am not sure that smoking jackets were later than the Victorian age, since John Galsworthy certainly mentions them in his stories and I have a Spy cartoon of the singer de Lara wearing one, which (not immediately to hand), probably pre-dated Ed VII's reign. I agree that, if one lived at one's club, a smoking jacket would be fine in the 'smoking room' (although, in the currency of modern britain, much practical good would it do you!!). However, it would never, surely, be worn in the street and, even at a country house, one would tend to the view that a smoking jacket, in place of a DJ, for a black tie dinner, would be very much the prerogative of the the host. However, here in the Sleepy Hollow, such concerns have a purely academic interest!!
NJS