Who Was Prince Charlie Anyway?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Hard to accept given that we have a coatee in the closet of said style dated from 1921 (Wm Anderson Edinburgh). It has all the design elements but rather than black its a very dark archer green (looks black except in the glare of sunlight) and its buttons are solid sterling silver balls. The colour, I think, is the real give-away to its pedigree (today: Kinloch Anderson) as the case of other formal and dress attire: the military. I have little to believe that the style did not predate the great war.

Thanks for the info! Thus far the earliest dated jacket I've found is either 1936, 1938, or 1939; the label is smudged and the last number is almost undecipherable. That was the reason for my post 1935 statement. Anyhow, I'd be delighted to see a picture of the jacket-- any chance you could post one?

As to the colour-- it was probably black to begin with, not Archer green. Many old black garments have acquired a greenish hue over the years due to a shift in colour as a result of the cleaning processes then in use.

As military uniforms are usually derived from the civilian clothing of the period, and not the other way around, I suspect that the Prince Charlie coatee (what ever it's antiquity) owes more to the cut-down tails coat worn by a gentleman then it does a piece of military clothing.