Читать книгу The Heritage of Dress - Wilfred Mark Webb - Страница 9

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 when the hand is to be pushed through the cuff, and afterwards fastened for the sake of warmth or to give a neat appearance. It is therefore possible that the ring of buttons is more properly a survival of the time when cuffs were turned back to preserve them, and that the vertical row is really of earlier origin. A uniform represented by Hogarth (Figure 30) shows both the row of buttons and the turned-back cuff, which seems to be quite independent of them.

In this instance we may have the degenerated turned-back cuff and one revived, shown together. Such a case, we need scarcely point out, could hardly occur in the case of an animal structure, for if by a “throw back” or “reversion to type” we get a vestigial character once more fully reproduced, we cannot expect the original structure and the vestige to be shown at the same time.

The adoption of buttons more or less for ornament has long been practised. John Brandon, who died in the year 1364, is shown on his brass (in the church of St. Mary, King’s Lynn) with no less than forty buttons on the sleeves of his undervest, which has embroidered cuffs and is buttoned to the elbow (see Plate IV). We shall, however, have something more to say with regard to buttons from this and other points of view as we proceed.

Reproduction of a brass to John Brandon and his two wives, in the Church of St. Mary, King’s Lynn. Date 1364. On the male figure a continuous row of buttons runs from the wrist to the elbow of the under vest. The women wear the wimple and the gorget or throat cloth.

PLATE IV.

An interesting case of superfluous buttons on the front of clothes is to be seen in the case of the short jackets of the postilions, belonging to His Majesty the King. There is a useful row down the middle which closes the garment, and two ornamental rows which start from each shoulder and curve downwards towards the middle row. These are probably vestiges of buttons that were once of use, and to seek an explanation it might be well to study some uniforms of the past. We shall find that in the eighteenth century it was customary to button back the revers of the uniform coat, as in the case of the French coast-guard officer of 1775. (See Figure 31.)

Fashion afterwards decreed that the coats should be fastened again with hooks, but the two rows of buttons remained.

Fig. 31.—The uniform of a coast-guard officer of 1775

(after Racinet).

In the coat of the postilion there is no trace of the revers which showed the lining, and were consequently of a different colour from the rest of the coat. We find, however, in the peculiar uniform of the Lancers that there are the two side rows of buttons, to which is fastened a red front. This appears to represent the two revers combined. In the present year, 1907, a number of ladies’ dresses are to be seen in which the revers trimmed with a different material from the dress are buttoned back against the latter.

In some ceremonial dresses and uniforms there are cross stripes on the breast (see Figure 61) which, it has been pointed out, represent series of buttonholes which have become hypertrophied, and are now exaggerated beyond recognition. The braid on the cuff of the London Scottish Volunteers seems also to represent buttonholes.

Such features as turned-back cuffs occur in women’s clothes, and, as we have seen, the arrangement of buttons may be copied from masculine attire. In other cases buttons seem to appear which have, it would seem, no hereditary right to their position; but it may be well, before dismissing them, to see whether they have not a pedigree. We might cite the case of the buttons that are sewn on to the frocks a little below the knee. They are often at the head of a plait, and it would be worth while to look into their history.