Coloured Waistcoats

[Jock Scot]

About various waistcoat colours, we can look back to the 1860s and see, in The Highlanders Of Scotland, that it was quite common for the waistcoat to not match the jacket.

With the jackets equivalent to our modern "day" tweed jackets around half have matching waistcoats and the others tartan, crimson, or red waistcoats. (Tartan waistcoats weren't just for Evening Dress at that time!)

With the "doublets" (the nearly universal formal jacket of that time, usually black with square silver buttons) the waistcoats are never matching but are tartan or red, save for a couple of buff/cream waistcoats.

In my old Highland Dress catalogues from the 1930s etc the two main formal jackets of that time, the Coatee and the Doublet, are illustrated and described with matching, tartan, or red waistcoats.

One illustration shows a Coatee (Prince Charlie) worn in a much more formal way that we usually see today, with tartan waistcoat, lace jabot, castellated diced hose, and buckled shoes.

It was said, in my youth, that the problem with a person wearing a red waistcoat with formal attire was that one often got mistaken for staff.