Men's Fashion
Men's fashion of the 1860s remained much the same as in the previous decade.
Shirts of linen or cotton featured high upstanding or turnover collars, and neckties grew wider and were tied in a bow or looped into a loose knot and fastened with a stickpin. Heavy padded and fitted frock coats (in French redingotes), now usually single-breasted and knee length, were worn for business occasions, over waistcoats or vests with lapels and notched collars. Waistcoats were generally cut straight across the front and had lapels.
The loosely fitted, mid-thigh length sack coat continued to slowly displace the frock coat for less-formal business occasions.
The slightly cutaway morning coat was worn for formal day occasions. The most formal evening dress remained a dark tail coat and trousers, with a white cravat; this costume was well on its way to crystallizing into the modern "white tie and tails".
Full-length trousers were worn, generally of a contrasting fabric. Costumes consisting of a coat, waistcoat and trousers of the same fabric (called a "ditto suit") remained a novelty at this time.
Overcoats had wide lapels and deep cuffs, and often featured contrasting velvet collars.
Top hats briefly became the very tall "stovepipe" shape, but a variety of other hat shapes were popular.
In 1865 hatmaker John B. Stetson invented the Boss of the Plains hat. It gained immediate success in the Old West among cowboys and settlers, due to its practicality. It had a vaguely round ribbon-lined crown and a wide brim, originally straight but soon becoming stylized into the iconic rim of the typical cowboy hat. Its dense felt could be rugged enough to carry water.
Read more about this topic: 1860s In Fashion
Famous quotes containing the words men and/or fashion:
“Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Fashion is the most intense expression of the phenomenon of neomania, which has grown ever since the birth of capitalism. Neomania assumes that purchasing the new is the same as acquiring value.... If the purchase of a new garment coincides with the wearing out of an old one, then obviously there is no fashion. If a garment is worn beyond the moment of its natural replacement, there is pauperization. Fashion flourishes on surplus, when someone buys more than he or she needs.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)