More about traditional jackets

[OC Richard]

We have to keep in mind that what we think of as a Scottish military doublet (with the gauntlet cuffs and flaps or skirts around the bottom) went FROM civilian Highland dress TO the military and not the other way round.

Doublets (and Glengarries) first came into the Army as the dress of pipers, who were more or less dressed in livery rather than the uniform that the rest of the regiment wore. They for whatever reason spread from the dress of the pipers alone to the rest of the regiment.

The Army didn't adopt doublets for the entire Scottish infantry until 1855 but they had been worn by some of the pipers for decades before and were originally a civilian style. (Ditto Glengarries.)

If one looks through hundreds of 19th century photographs of kilted men in civilian Highland Dress, and looks through The Highlanders of Scotland (1860s, showing precisely the same dress as photographs of the same period) one is struck by a number of things:

1) there was a greater variety of jacket styles at that time than today
2) jackets were often more plain than "kilt jackets" are now, often with utterly plain cuffs, lacking epaulettes, etc.
3) our modern suite of Evening jackets (Prince Charlie, Montrose, Sherriffmuir, Kenmore) did not exist.

The equivalent to our "Day Dress" tweed kilt jackets were nearly always light to mid grey, less often brown, and were usually utterly plain. They were, in fact, often exactly the same jacket as one would wear with trousers at that time. Sometimes they were cut shorter to suit the kilt, sometimes not. The tweed almost never has any pattern to it.

For Evening Dress, the most common style was a style very similar to the military doublet of the same period, with flaps and cuffs, made of black fabric and silver buttons. What distinguished it from the military jacket was its open collar with lapels. Also fairly common was utterly plain black jackets, jackets which we today would hardly consider suitable for Evening Dress. One is struck by all the finery often worn with Evening Dress at that time (waistbelt, crossbelt, plaid, weaponry) which makes one tend to not notice the plainness of the jacket itself.