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How to dress like a gentleman- A guide on the history of suits worn by the true gentleman
SUITS
HISTORY
The invention of the modern suit, as a matching set of clothes, is usually put down to the common
sense of the English country gentleman of the late 18th century, acting in concert with his uniquely
skilled London tailor. The story, however, goes much further back.
The word ‘robe’ once referred to a set of garments, and we know from the accounts of Edward III,
father of the Black Prince and foe of France, that his ‘Great Wardrobe’ contained numerous ‘suites
of clothes’. A ‘suite’ then could consist of up to half-a-dozen garments. Reducing this to a practical
and stylish three or two pieces was to be the work of more than 500 years.
It was in Edward III’s reign that the notion of tailoring first took hold: the word itself did not come into
use until very late in the 13th century. Prior to that, clothes were not shaped, through cutting and
construction, but hung more or less loosely, so that everyone looked rather like a relative of Friar
Tuck.
One of the earliest effects of the Italian Renaissance, when humanism replaced the otherworldly
Middle Ages, was to change the way people wanted to look. The loose robe or tunic was shortened,
tightened, snipped and stitched to the contours of the body. There is a contemporary poetic
description of Sir Gawain’s Green Knight displaying ‘his hips and haunches…elegantly small’ in a
tunic ‘tight at the waist/At back and at breast his body was broad’. As exact a description of the
sartorial ideal as would ever be written.
The New Look proved a popular sensation, to the discomfort of men in holy orders who were quick
to equate tight clothing with loose morals. French commentators attributed the English victory at the
Battle of Crecy in 1346 to divine retribution against their side for dressing so indecently.
Italy lost the style lead to Spain, which instituted the somber elegance of black, which in England
was combined with cream, still today a formula for formal grace. Spain in turn ceded cultural
dominance to France, whose ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV presided over an age of extreme ostentation.
From powered wig to silver-buckled shoes, the gentleman was a chrysalis encased in brocades and
satins, velvet and lace.
This did not sit well with a reluctant guest of his. Charles II, upon returning from exile after the
Cromwellian interlude, determined to break the English of a habit of slavishly aping the French. He
wanted something that was distinctly English, and that would end the tyrannic vagaries of fashion by
staying in style indefinitely.
Samuel Pepys, himself the son of a tailor, recorded in his diary some of the key moments. On 3
February 1661, Pepys stepped out for the first time in his ‘coate’, that being ‘the manner now
among gentlemen’. This coate was a knee-length adaptation of a loose riding garment that in its
new form replaced the padded doublet, itself a development of the original tunic.
Step two, in 1666, was the introduction of the ‘vest’. Straight-cut, close-fitting, it was promoted
personally by the king, and soon everybody who was anybody was wearing vests, or waistcoats, as
they came to be called. The third and final step was to replace bulging French ‘petticoat breeches’
with a much narrower style, cut to the knees. The result, by 1670, was a three-piece suit, first in a
line extending to the present day.
The French were not about to capitulate. Regulation wear at the Court of Versailles was still the
outfit required of high society. It was at this point that the English country gentleman made his great
contribution to the future of civilisation.
Unlike their doomed French cousins, the upper classes of England were loath to waste time at
Court, much preferring to romp about their country estates. Hunting was their particular pleasure,
and since it was hardly possible to mount a horse in courtly garb, something had to give. Coat-skirts
were cut away at the front, Leaving only tails at the back.
Brocades and velvets were discarded for plain cloth cut for comfort and ease of movement. A
hardwearing woolen riding coat worn by country folk caught the aristocratic eye. Comparatively
loosefitting , and with a high, turned-down collar, it was adapted for the drawing-room. Colours
sobered, to the extent that a shade of brown became so common in the 1770s that it entered the
language as a description of anything dull or monotonous. That shade was ‘drab’.
The mood was infectious. For his seminal novel of romance and tragedy, The sorrows of Yong
Werther, Goethe in 1774 dressed his protagonist in a blue English tailcoat. From such an
auspicious endorsement,this ‘Werther dress’ would be gradually accepted in Germany and
eventually become standard throughout Europe.
The scene was set for the most famous partnership in sartorial history. In 1795, an arrogant youth
named George Bryan Brummell made the acquaintance of the Prince of Wales, the future George
IV, and proceeded to mesmerize him with his wit and an extraordinarily fastidious sense of style.
Though profligate and self-indulgent, the Prince as pupil proved the perfect conduit for the
teachings of the immortal Beau Brummell, whose word on the exact cut of a coat or the starching of
a stock could consequently not be denied.
Brummell set new rules to cope with new circumstances. A gentleman’s appearance had previously
depended upon the richness of the material upon his back: it mattered not that the clothes were
often badly made and ill-fitting, and not always particularly clean. Quality now became something
one knew when one saw it , but was difficult to describe. It came down to cut and fit, to exquisitely
minute detail, and to the sometimes mystical relationship of a man with his tailor. It has been said of
Brummel that his clothes seemed to melt into each other with the perfection of their cut and the
quiet harmony of their colour. Without a single point of emphasis, everything was distinguished. And
he preached and immaculate state of cleanliness.
Essential allies in all of this were the weavers of fine English cloth and the tailors of London, who
developed techniques for moulding the cloth as a sculptural medium. Brummell’s arrogance and
cruel wit eventually alienated the Prince and gambling brought on his ruin, but his dictates endure
as the essential code of the well-dressed gentleman to this day. Even his preference in colour –
blue - would endure to the extent that the navy suit became the uniform of millions through much of
the 20th century.
Through the 19th century the tailcoat evolved into formal dress. A looser ‘frock coat’ replaced the
tailcoat as everyday wear, only in its turn to gradually give way to a still easier arrangement initially
intended only to ‘lounge’ in. The suit as we know it had evolved.
HISTORY
The invention of the modern suit, as a matching set of clothes, is usually put down to the common
sense of the English country gentleman of the late 18th century, acting in concert with his uniquely
skilled London tailor. The story, however, goes much further back.
The word ‘robe’ once referred to a set of garments, and we know from the accounts of Edward III,
father of the Black Prince and foe of France, that his ‘Great Wardrobe’ contained numerous ‘suites
of clothes’. A ‘suite’ then could consist of up to half-a-dozen garments. Reducing this to a practical
and stylish three or two pieces was to be the work of more than 500 years.
It was in Edward III’s reign that the notion of tailoring first took hold: the word itself did not come into
use until very late in the 13th century. Prior to that, clothes were not shaped, through cutting and
construction, but hung more or less loosely, so that everyone looked rather like a relative of Friar
Tuck.
One of the earliest effects of the Italian Renaissance, when humanism replaced the otherworldly
Middle Ages, was to change the way people wanted to look. The loose robe or tunic was shortened,
tightened, snipped and stitched to the contours of the body. There is a contemporary poetic
description of Sir Gawain’s Green Knight displaying ‘his hips and haunches…elegantly small’ in a
tunic ‘tight at the waist/At back and at breast his body was broad’. As exact a description of the
sartorial ideal as would ever be written.
The New Look proved a popular sensation, to the discomfort of men in holy orders who were quick
to equate tight clothing with loose morals. French commentators attributed the English victory at the
Battle of Crecy in 1346 to divine retribution against their side for dressing so indecently.
Italy lost the style lead to Spain, which instituted the somber elegance of black, which in England
was combined with cream, still today a formula for formal grace. Spain in turn ceded cultural
dominance to France, whose ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV presided over an age of extreme ostentation.
From powered wig to silver-buckled shoes, the gentleman was a chrysalis encased in brocades and
satins, velvet and lace.
This did not sit well with a reluctant guest of his. Charles II, upon returning from exile after the
Cromwellian interlude, determined to break the English of a habit of slavishly aping the French. He
wanted something that was distinctly English, and that would end the tyrannic vagaries of fashion by
staying in style indefinitely.
Samuel Pepys, himself the son of a tailor, recorded in his diary some of the key moments. On 3
February 1661, Pepys stepped out for the first time in his ‘coate’, that being ‘the manner now
among gentlemen’. This coate was a knee-length adaptation of a loose riding garment that in its
new form replaced the padded doublet, itself a development of the original tunic.
Step two, in 1666, was the introduction of the ‘vest’. Straight-cut, close-fitting, it was promoted
personally by the king, and soon everybody who was anybody was wearing vests, or waistcoats, as
they came to be called. The third and final step was to replace bulging French ‘petticoat breeches’
with a much narrower style, cut to the knees. The result, by 1670, was a three-piece suit, first in a
line extending to the present day.
The French were not about to capitulate. Regulation wear at the Court of Versailles was still the
outfit required of high society. It was at this point that the English country gentleman made his great
contribution to the future of civilisation.
Unlike their doomed French cousins, the upper classes of England were loath to waste time at
Court, much preferring to romp about their country estates. Hunting was their particular pleasure,
and since it was hardly possible to mount a horse in courtly garb, something had to give. Coat-skirts
were cut away at the front, Leaving only tails at the back.
Brocades and velvets were discarded for plain cloth cut for comfort and ease of movement. A
hardwearing woolen riding coat worn by country folk caught the aristocratic eye. Comparatively
loosefitting , and with a high, turned-down collar, it was adapted for the drawing-room. Colours
sobered, to the extent that a shade of brown became so common in the 1770s that it entered the
language as a description of anything dull or monotonous. That shade was ‘drab’.
The mood was infectious. For his seminal novel of romance and tragedy, The sorrows of Yong
Werther, Goethe in 1774 dressed his protagonist in a blue English tailcoat. From such an
auspicious endorsement,this ‘Werther dress’ would be gradually accepted in Germany and
eventually become standard throughout Europe.
The scene was set for the most famous partnership in sartorial history. In 1795, an arrogant youth
named George Bryan Brummell made the acquaintance of the Prince of Wales, the future George
IV, and proceeded to mesmerize him with his wit and an extraordinarily fastidious sense of style.
Though profligate and self-indulgent, the Prince as pupil proved the perfect conduit for the
teachings of the immortal Beau Brummell, whose word on the exact cut of a coat or the starching of
a stock could consequently not be denied.
Brummell set new rules to cope with new circumstances. A gentleman’s appearance had previously
depended upon the richness of the material upon his back: it mattered not that the clothes were
often badly made and ill-fitting, and not always particularly clean. Quality now became something
one knew when one saw it , but was difficult to describe. It came down to cut and fit, to exquisitely
minute detail, and to the sometimes mystical relationship of a man with his tailor. It has been said of
Brummel that his clothes seemed to melt into each other with the perfection of their cut and the
quiet harmony of their colour. Without a single point of emphasis, everything was distinguished. And
he preached and immaculate state of cleanliness.
Essential allies in all of this were the weavers of fine English cloth and the tailors of London, who
developed techniques for moulding the cloth as a sculptural medium. Brummell’s arrogance and
cruel wit eventually alienated the Prince and gambling brought on his ruin, but his dictates endure
as the essential code of the well-dressed gentleman to this day. Even his preference in colour –
blue - would endure to the extent that the navy suit became the uniform of millions through much of
the 20th century.
Through the 19th century the tailcoat evolved into formal dress. A looser ‘frock coat’ replaced the
tailcoat as everyday wear, only in its turn to gradually give way to a still easier arrangement initially
intended only to ‘lounge’ in. The suit as we know it had evolved.
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