Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1887 — Evolution of the Dress Coat. [ARTICLE]

Evolution of the Dress Coat.

Every part of the despised dress coat has a reason for its peculiarity of shape. The apparently foolish nick or slit at the junction of the collar and facings on each side dates from the time when men rode a good deal, and the coat collar must be frequently turned up and the chest buttoned closely over to meet the severity of sudden storms. A division was made on each side of the collar to permit this to be done, and the present useless slit is the survival of this very needful predecessor. Not even the buttons which adorn the small of one's back are mere vain ornament. In about the year 1700 it began to be the custom to gather in at the waist the sacklike coat of the period. This was done by two buttons sewn on over the hips, which were attached to loops set on at the edge of the coat. Then, as waists became a permanent fashion the loops were disused, and the buttons, instead of being discarded, were simply moved a little further back; here they attached to a new usefulness in supporting the sword belt. Now that sword belts aro no longer worn, these two buttons seem merely a meaningless excrescence. The very shape of the dress coat, which has been so much and so often ridiculed, is not an arbitrary fashion, but a natural development. Starting from the ample square-skirted coat of the close of the seventeenth century, itself a development, we next find the same coat with the corners of the skirts buttoned together for the convenience of riding; then the same garment with the lap-corners cut off instead of buttoned up —the swallow tail of the early years of the present century ; finally by a very slight degeneration the modern dress coat was produced.—Cork Herald.