Waistcoat

A waistcoat is a close-fitting man's garment worn with a coat as part of a suit and fastened down the front with buttons. In the 18th century it was often the most decorated part of the outfit.

What did an 18th-century waistcoat look like?

The Victoria and Albert Museum describes a British waistcoat of 1755–60 with a round neckline, curving fronts and skirts reaching to mid-thigh. Its pocket flaps, front edges and hem are embroidered in linen thread, while the back and lining are a coarser linen, since only the fronts were meant to be seen. It has 12 worked buttonholes along the left front. A French satin waistcoat of the 1760s in the same collection is embroidered to shape with red silk, with 13 buttonholes on the left front.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a French waistcoat of 1760–70 in silk and cotton, embroidered with a floral border along the button edge and on the pocket flaps.

What else was it called?

Writers of the period also used "vest". The V&A's record of a blue silk waistcoat of the 1740s quotes Tobias Smollett's 1760 novel The Adventures of Sir Lancelot Greaves (spelled as in the museum record), in which a hero marries in a "white coat and blue sattin vest, both embroidered with silver". The same record notes that blue and silver was a fashionable combination for an 18th-century bridegroom.

Sources

1. Waistcoat, 1755–1760 (T.158-1975). Victoria and Albert Museum
2. Waistcoat, 1760–1769 (T.283-1910). Victoria and Albert Museum
3. Waistcoat, 1740–1749 (O127185). Victoria and Albert Museum
4. Waistcoat, French, 1760–70 (2009.300.2855). The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Read more

• Why Men's and Women's Buttons Sit on Opposite Sides

Last updated October 16, 2026 · Markdown