European Riding and Hunting Wear
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of over 30 items of European riding and hunting wear dating from the mid-1600s to 1960s. The collection includes riding hats, women's habits, breeches, jodhpurs, and riding boots, as well as a set of jockey's colours. Of particular significance is a hunting coat from about 1770–1800 and habit from about 1837–39. The collection has strong group of each twentieth-century riding habits made by London and Glasgow-based tailors Hossack, E Tautz, Busvines, R W Forsyth and W J Kinsey.
Clothing for riding needs to be both well-made to withstand the strain of being worn by a rider on horseback and well-fitting to enable the rider to be able to move with ease. Women's habits developed from men's, and were generally made by tailors rather than dressmakers. Early examples include long skirts, with the safety skirt introduced in the late 1800s. During the early 1900s women increasingly wore first breeches, initially under apron skirts, and then jodhpurs.
Hunting on horseback was initially an aristocratic and later upper-class sport. Hunt uniforms for men developed during the 1700s, with estate hunt uniforms initially based on liveries. In the early 1800s red coats, known was pinks, became favourite choice for many county hunts, with black becoming the preferred colour for women's habits.
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