paintings

Elegant men concerned with the propriety of their appearance could easily change up to four times a day. Starting with a dressing gown and slippers, which were part of a category called "undress," to morning dress, which comprised various styles that were mandated for different times of day and occasions and constituted "half dress," they could then change for dinner, a ball or court, which were not all alike but were considered "full dress."

Garment styles and their use evolved through the years. For example, wearing an early eighteenth century frock coat as formal wear was unthinkable in the early eighteenth century. Meant to be worn in the country, it came to be used as a riding coat. As its skirts progressively narrowed to create tails, in the last decades of the century, the frock's appellation and use was in transition. By the nineteenth century, the coat, once called the frock, came to be known first as a morning coat, then as a dress coat, and eventually as a tail coat. With the passage of time and changing fashion, it became acceptable for day wear, and by the second half of the century, it was retained exclusively in black as formal evening wear. In the first third of the nineteenth century, the word frock was used to describe a different type of coat that reverted to long front and back skirts reaching the knees. Informal at its beginnings, it too was to become the most formal of attire until Edward, Prince of Wales, became King Edward VIII in 1936 and abolished its use at court.

The economic rise of the conservative middle-classes was echoed in dress. By the middle of the century colors became much darker and styles more modest. Brighter colors and patterns could still be seen in vests. By mid-century, vests began to match the dark trousers. The light colors that gave men's pants the appearance of statuesque nudity went progressively out of favor. As the cities got more crowded and dirty, this was a practical improvement but light colored pants could still be worn in the country for leisure. The tight cream pantaloons were still worn for formal wear. Not unlike women's styles, revealing fashions were kept for formal gatherings among social equals. As pantaloons grew to reach the ankle in 1817(1), a strap was passed under the shoe and secured to the hem for a wrinkle-free look. Different types of trousers were worn as informal day wear by the second quarter of the century and many were almost as tight and revealing as pantaloons. Like them, they were equipped with straps and, by the1840s, were cut with a center front fly (2). By this time of public modesty when neither women's nor men's legs were mentioned, the popularity of the new knee-length frock coat helped to hide from view men's "inexpressibles," a euphemism for trousers.

The fascination with Greek statuary and the desire to appear to advantage in fitted clothing did cause great advances in the art of the tailor. Norah Waugh, in The Cut of Men's Clothes: 1600-1900, refers to the invention of the tape measure in the early part of the nineteenth century, its acceptance by the second quarter, and the new approaches to cutting that resulted. One German mathematician and lover of Greek art, Dr. Henry Wampen, theorized at length about the body's proportions in his volumes from 1834 and 1863 and eventually influenced the development of various systems of cut, fit and pattern grading. These new "scientific" approaches were to mark the evolution and distribution of men's wear in the second half of the century. Along with better fit came greater comfort without a complete loss of body definition. Nevertheless, middle-class notions of comfort were still not those we know today. Although the first third of the century was marked by the discomfort of tight pantaloons, high neck stocks and stiff cravats, by the 1840s a highly feminized silhouette with an extremely small waist, curved hips and padded chest became the norm and was accessorized with stiff neck bands and narrow high-heeled footwear. Masculinity was redefined and restored by the growing fashion for mutton-chop sideburns, mustaches, beards and longer hair.

From the second decade of the nineteenth century, neo-classicism began to loose ground to Romanticism, a movement marked by untamed emotions and exoticism. Men were now celebrated for their irrationality while femininity echoed of neatness and order. With great passion, Scottish tartans were embraced in mid-nineteenth-century fashions and were the last form of exaltation and color to be seen in men's daytime trousers for the remainder of the century.

(1)Norah Waugh, The Cut of Men's Clothes: 1600-1900 (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1964), 116.
(2) Ibid.

the state of "undress"
dressing gowns

the new frock coat

"half dress"

"full dress"

the fad for plaid