---
title: "Waistcoat"
description: "A waistcoat is a close-fitting man's garment worn with a coat and buttoned down the front; in the 18th century it was often the most richly decorated piece."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/waistcoat
published: 2026-10-16
updated: 2026-10-16
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Waistcoat

*A waistcoat is a close-fitting man's garment worn with a coat and buttoned down the front; in the 18th century it was often the most richly decorated piece.*

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)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O360068/). Victoria and Albert Museum
2. [Waistcoat, 1760–1769 (T.283-1910)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O357313/). Victoria and Albert Museum
3. [Waistcoat, 1740–1749 (O127185)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O127185/). Victoria and Albert Museum
4. [Waistcoat, French, 1760–70 (2009.300.2855)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157726). The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/waistcoat