Men Suits Discount
2 Button Suits.
The
2 button suit is the traditional form of male formal attire in
the Western world. The modern 2 button suit did not appear until the
mid nineteenth century, but the origins of its coat can be traced
back to the revolution in men's dress set by Charles II, king of
Great Britain in the 1660s. Charles, following the example of the
court of Louis XIV at Versailles decreed in 1666 that at court, men
were to wear a long coat or jacket, a waistcoat (originally called a
petticoat, a term which later became applied solely to women's
dress), a cravat (ancestor of the modern necktie) a wig, and
breeches or trousers gathered at the knee, as well as a hat for
outdoor wear. Coats with matching trousers or even waistcoat have
gone in and out of fashion over the last four centuries however the
modern lounge 2 button suit coat is still derived from historical
coats. Although it is hard to see the outline of the modern business
2 button suit coat in the elaborate and brightly-coloured court
dress of the seventeenth century, the basic pattern has survived for
more than four hundred years with some adjustments, despite the
abandonment of wigs and knee breeches after the French Revolution;
the rise of British tailoring, which used steam, pressure, padding,
and stiffening to mould woolen fabric to the body; the invention of
the modern necktie in the late nineteenth century; and the gradual
disappearance of waistcoats and hats during the last fifty years.
What we call the modern 2 button
suit was originally a nineteenth-century English innovation in
dress. It was originally usually referred to a lounge 2 button suit
and was worn only in the country and at the seaside. At that time
morning dress and frock coats were not part of a '2 button suit'
because they are were usually worn with non-matching striped
trousers, and having matching waistcoat and trousers was originally
considered more informal. The term "ditto suit" was also transiently
used early on due to the matching waistcoat and trousers, these
sometimes having coats more resembling a frock coat or a morning
coat. The "sack suit" is a North America derivative of the English
lounge 2 button suit which looked even looser and more casual
because it lacked darts. In the nineteenth century, when dressed
more informally, men still wore morning dress as a more casual
alternative to the formal frock coats then considered appropriate
business and day time formalwear. The lounge 2 button suit was thus
an even more casual form of dress and was reserved solely for
recreation activities.
The lounge
2 button business suit became increasingly widely worn through
the later nineteenth century as casual town daywear until it started
to become an acceptable alternative to the morning coat as town wear
in the early twentieth century. As the lounge 2 button suit became
increasingly popular, even the humblest men would have at least one
2 button suit to wear on Sunday to church, as part of their "Sunday
best." Victorian men who were able to afford it would still wear a
frock coat to church. The waistcoat or vest was worn regularly with
the 2 button suit until World War II, but is rarely seen today.
At the end of the nineteenth
century, an informal evening version of the lounge 2 button suit
emerged in England, known as a dinner jacket in British English, in
a dress code referred to as black tie. When it was imported to the
United States it became known as as the
tuxedo. The dinner jacket was originally called a 'dress lounge'
in England to indicate that it was a lounge 2 button suit for
evening wear. The 'dress lounge' was originally worn only for small
private gatherings and white tail tie was worn for large formal
events. The 'dress lounge' slowly became more popular for larger
events as an alternative to full evening dress in white tie. As
black tie grew in popularity, it has became increasingly acceptable
as formalwear and today has all but replaced white tie, which today
is only seen at ultra-formal occasions. The daytime formal
equivalent to white tie is morning dress but in the United States
this too has become uncommon and the daytime semi-formal dress
called the stroller is more common. The stroller is itself a form of
'dress lounge' - a day time semi-formal lounge suit version of
morning dress.
|
