European Men's Wear 1800–1850
- Comments
-
Glasgow Museums has a collection of over 40 early-to-mid nineteenth-century men's wear main garments, predominately waistcoats, but also a few coats, shirts and trousers, dating from 1800 to 1850.
This group covers the late Georgian and Hanoverian period, including the Regency period of 1811–1820, and reigns of George IV (1762–1830) and William IV (1765–1837) as well as the early Victorian period that began with the accession of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) in 1837. A key item is a 1820s' tartan coat in hard Prince Charles Edward Stewart tartan. The waistcoats include examples with plain, woven patterned and embroidered fronts, including examples made by tailors, Brodie & McLeod and Robert Paterson.
Men's wear during this period normally consisted of a coat with long tails or from the mid-1810s a frock coat with skirts, worn over a waistcoat and linen shirt. Breeches were slowly replaced by fitted pantaloons or straight-cut trousers, first for day wear and by the 1820s for evening wear, although breeches continued to be worn as part of formal court wear. The cut and cloth of these garments changed subtly over the decades, with high-cut coat fronts fashionable in the early 1800s, hour-glass figures with puffed shoulders and narrow waists in the 1820s, and patterned jacquard-woven or velvet waistcoats in the 1830s and 1840s.
- Broader term
- Staff Contact