Argyll waistcoat with PC jacket

[OC Richard]

There's a reason why wearing a waistcoat with a high "V" with a PC looks out of place to those with an old eye: waistcoats with a low "V" were in style for Evening Dress at the time the PC was invented, meaning that the PC has had a low-cut waistcoat from the beginning.

In the 2nd half of the 19th century waistcoats generally had a high "V". The only Evening jackets then were the Doublet and the Argyll. When the "V" dropped lower (post-1900) these low-cut waistcoats were worn with the Evening Doublet, the Evening Argyll, and (when it appeared around 1910) the "Coatee" (what we call a "Prince Charlie").

For Evening Dress the "V" has stayed low. The high "V" has long been associated with tweed Day jackets.

In other words black Argylls worn with Evening Dress would be traditionally be expected to be worn with low-cut Evening style waistcoats. Lovat tweed Day Dress Argylls would be expected to be worn with high-cut waistcoats.

The wearing a high "V" waistcoat with the PC is quite recent, seems to me.

Time for pictures!

High Victorian Evening Dress, loads of accessories, a doublet with a waistcoat of middling height





Around 1900 Evening Dress began shedding the accessories, and becoming more simple and sleek. Still the Doublet holds sway. Note the waistcoat's plunging neckline



By the 1930s the old long-hair sporrans had given way to sleek small sealskin pocket-shaped sporrans, and nearly all accessories had been laid aside. Still the Doublet, now (for some unknown reason) sometimes called "regulation". This illustration is rare in that it shows "lace brogues" worn without decorative buckles.



From the 1920s: a "Dress Argyll" with the waistcoat, shirt, and tie that would be expected in Evening Dress



But that's just a drawing in a catalogue! People surely didn't wear Argylls for Evening Dress.

They did.





This is the milieu in which the "Coatee" appeared c1910 (left) to be followed c1930 by the "Montrose" (right) (from a 1936 catalogue)