Mystery Jacket

[OC Richard]

If you look closely at the spread of the buttons on these coatees you'll find some subtle differences. The Prince Charlie Coatee has a spread of buttons very similar to my RN mess jacket with three buttons each side of the chest but without the link at the front (as does the Regulation Doublet). The Kinloch Anderson coatee has a different arrangement with three little buttons actually at the front. Both coatees have three-button military cuffs, while the Regulation Doublet has Argyle cuffs.

Good eye, the Prince Charlie coatee seems to have had what you call military cuffs, what I've heard called slash cuffs, from the get-go. Yes you'll see differing button arrangements on Prince Charlies, even now, though most modern ones have the three-button-a-side thing.

Victorian doublets usually had the Argyll (or gauntlet) cuffs, but also slash cuffs and other sorts of cuff treatment as well.

A Victorian doublet with slash cuffs



When the Cameron Highlanders introduced doublets into the army, in the 1840s, in green, for their pipers, they had gauntlet cuffs. But oddly enough when the army introduced scarlet doublets for all Highland soldiers in 1855 they had slash cuffs



The army changed its mind and in 1868 changed to gauntlet cuffs

The Prince Charlie has been the ubiquitous evening jacket in Scotland for decades and it's refreshing to see not only a revival of interest in the doublets but also the occasional Kinloch Anderson coatee.

Yes indeed the Prince Charlie went from being a novel jacket thought of as being mostly suitable to fashionable young men in the 1920s to becoming near-universal by the 1960s. So refreshing as you say to see its hegemony challenged a bit.