The Heritage of Dress. Wilfred Mark Webb
Fig. 16.—The buttons and tab on a tramway driver’s coat.
Fig. 17.—An eighteenth-century coat with side buttons and tab.
Fig. 18.—Side tabs and buttons at the back (after Racinet).
It is worth while to consider side-pockets, which in their turn are remnants of lateral openings which were made in coats at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the following centuries. The sword-handle conveniently protruded through the left-hand slit, which, like its fellow, ran from the waist to the lower margin of the coat or stopped half-way. (See Figures 18 and 19.) In the latter case, the arrangement very much resembles the vertical pocket which has become common again of recent years. (See Figure 20.)
Fig. 19.—A coat worn at the end of the seventeenth-century
(after H. Bonnart).
Fig. 20.—A modern coat with side pockets.
Occasionally a tab, such as that to which reference has been made, kept the parts of the coat together; but often there were buttons and buttonholes, at least at the upper end of the openings. These survive in several cases, such as in the overcoat of the commissionaire, while the pocket is sometimes represented by a mere flap (see Figure 21) ornamented with buttons as on the livery of certain footmen.
Fig. 21.—A footman’s coat, modern, with vestigial pocket flaps.
Fig. 22.—Coat skirts buttoned back (after Hogarth).
To sum up the matter, the topmost pair of buttons has come from the fastenings of the side slit and the lower ones from those of the back slit. Buttons on the skirt behind have in the meantime had a very intimate connection with the evolution of the “swallow-tail” coat (see Figure 24). They were used to fasten the corners of the ordinary riding-coat together, so that the linings should not be injured by the sweat of the horses. (See Figure 22.)
Mr. Deane Butcher tells me that he can remember this buttoning back being done in the case of his uncle, when the latter rode to market or to church; but in this case it was the two uppermost buttons which were again brought into use. At dances the coats were also subjected to similar treatment, and what at first was a temporary condition afterwards became a permanent one. It is obvious that the turned-back lining would often be of a different colour from the outside of the coat, and facings on old uniforms, and in that of the present dress of a lord-lieutenant (see Figure 23) are derived from the practice of fastening the corners of the coat together. In the “swallow-tail” the outer corners have been cut right away. (See Figure 24.)
Fig. 23.—A coat with the skirts buttoned back and showing the lining.
Fig. 24.—A dress coat with skirts cut away.
The buttons, in the interesting cases which we have described, have been allowed to remain as part and parcel of our costume on account of their decorative character, and in a great measure the same is true of those on coat cuffs (see Figure 25). In many cases there are proper buttonholes, and it is possible to undo the sleeve buttons; but occasionally the arrangement has degenerated and the buttonholes are imitations or only the buttons remain.
Fig. 25.—A modern coat cuff with buttons.
Fig. 26.—Turned-back cuff, end of seventeenth century (after Bonnart).
To find an explanation of this feature we shall have to go back again to the seventeenth century, when so much was expended upon coats that it became advisable to turn back the cuffs out of harm’s way. To hold them in position, series of buttons and buttonholes were devised, and just as the turning back of the skirts was at first temporary and afterwards came to be done once for all when the coat was made, so the turned-back cuff grew into a permanent institution. In Figure 26 the buttons are one above the other as in modern dress, but in the next two Figures (27 and 28) they are horizontal.
Fig. 27.—A coat sleeve (after Hogarth) with a horizontal row of buttons.
Fig. 28.—Sleeve of a coat of the seventeenth century, reputed to have been worn by Charles I.
A survival of this arrangement can still be seen in the coat sleeves of the higher clergy. In ordinary dress, the turned-back edge of the cuff may now only be represented by a band of braid or a row of stitches; but in soldiers’ uniforms, an ornamented cuff persists which represents in reality the lining of the sleeve. Again, the turned-back cuff is actually present in the clothes of costermongers, and has been revived on overcoats to a considerable extent during the last few years. (See Figure 29.)
As a rule, too, the vertical pocket already described accompanies the turned-back cuff, as it did some centuries ago. (See Figure 20.)
Fig. 29.—The turned-back cuff on an overcoat, modern.
Fig. 30.—A sleeve with vertical buttons and a turned-back cuff as well (from a uniform, after Hogarth).
It must not be forgotten that buttons have long been used on narrow sleeves. They are undone