In the TV series White Collar, Neal Caffrey is always wearing a vest with lapels (with no coat, rolled-up shirtsleeves, and usually a fedora when outdoors). I’ve never seen a vest with lapels IRL, not even in a store – is this a new fashion?
IIRC he is wearing the clothes of the dead husband of the lady he is living with (Diane Carrol). So it is actually old fashion. Which is supposed to look cool.
Well, I can’t recall seeing vests with lapels in any old movies, either. When were they ever in style, or, for that matter, made?
My husband has two, a white one, and a black one! He used to bartend fancy events, and wore them over your standard tuxedo wear.
I think you might be surprised to learn you can probable rent one from any tuxedo rental shop. It’s just formal wear you don’t see much any more.
Asking me questions about fashion is like asking the Pope about noodling catfish. But a quick search shows someone who is selling them claiming that it was fashion in the 30s.
Which of course would be far too old for the character Neal is supposed to be cribbing his clothes from.
I have two lapelled vests.
J. Peterman.
Not necessarily. Diahann Carroll was born in 1935. She could have married someone much older. I don’t remember if his age was ever mentioned. Someone rich and conservative could easily be shown to wear clothing that had once been in style and refused to change. When a young model wears something out of style it becomes retro.
The character (a grandmother) said that her dead husband “liked the classics,” so they were probably meant to be old in his time as well.
Many of the suits Caffery wears are from English designer Paul Smith. As you can see from the link Smith loves collared vests.
i’m pretty sure that they go back at least to the victorian tijmes. Didn’t prince Albert wear them??
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Maybe . . . it’s hard to tell from this photo, in which Prince Albert appears to be wearing three garments over his shirt; the undermost might or might not have lapels. If so, it would be the first pic of a lapelled vest (or, “waistcoat”) from Victorian times I’ve ever seen.
You can get the vests with lapels in western wear stores. I’ve seen them in every color imaginable and all different brocades. Somebody must be buying and wearing them.
Every smart gunslinger is wearing them this season.
I own a tweed example. It works very well when I feel like steampunking in shirt sleeves.
I have a vest with lapels. It’s a women’s tuxedo-style vest. I got it at Penney’s about a year ago, so it’s neither old nor high-fashion.
Y’know, I’ve been searching for some vests and never even thought to look in a western wear store. D’oh!
Do you steampunk often? I’m going to a steampunk wedding on Valentine’s Day weekend and am desperately trying to put together an appropriate “dressy” costume. Working on it, though.
I’ve got a wool vest (waistcoat, whatever) with lapels from these guys. I can wear it with boots and a Boss of the Plains Stetson and I’m good to go for 1880s Old West. Substitute high lace-up shoes and a bowler, and I’m generalizably Victorian.
I also have a cotton vest with lapels, from here, which I can wear with cotton trousers of an old west nature. Alternatively, I have worn this vest to work, when the days have been cool enough to want something more than a shirt, but not so cool that a jacket was required.
There is some very cool stuff on those sites. I have a trip planned to Las Vegas in March, and it would be a lot of fun to accessorize a riverboat gambler’s outfit for the trip. Only problem is you really need, imo, some spectacular whiskers to pull that look off, and I don’t know that I could do it. Does give me something to think about, though.
I tend towards tweed and rayguns. Nothing unusual in the clothing (I am rather Dr. Watson shaped, although I describe it as “presenting a prosperous figure”) and few accessories. I do not even own a pair of goggles.
My younger daughter has a Lady Explorer look going, and occasional Girl Genius Military.
Really, if you wear a nice blouse with a ruffly front, dark full skirt, a cute top-hat, and have goggles around your neck, you will be more “steamy” than 90% of the folks I see who actually think they are doing well. A colourful veil around the hat as a hat-band, maybe a brooch with a clock, lace gloves, etc. Don’t ocedo it and don’t try to hard.
The real Steampunks I know are very accepting in terms of attire. We have not yet developed a casts of Steam Nazis to decree what is and is not Steampunk.