Who Was Prince Charlie Anyway?

[Nanook]

Anyhow, I'd be delighted to see a picture of the jacket-- any chance you could post one?

I see if I have a chance.

As to the colour-- it was probably black to begin with, not Archer green. Many old black garments have acquired a greenish hue over the years due to a shift in colour as a result of the cleaning processes then in use.

The iron complexes and dye deterioration tend to be towards green/brown and patchy rather than consistent. Although the garment is pushing 90 the dark green really does appear to be a very dark green (looking also at the silk bits). I need to look at it again.

As military uniforms are usually derived from the civilian clothing of the period, and not the other way around,

Here too I would have to disagree. Most of Savile Row as well as Highland garb specialists such as Wm Anderson were outfitters of military uniforms.

I suspect that the Prince Charlie coatee (what ever it's antiquity) owes more to the cut-down tails coat worn by a gentleman then it does a piece of military clothing.

The cut-down tails coat--- short Spencer Jacket--- became quite the rage among dandies in the late 1790s and was quickly morphed by others with military touches into the Hussar. The tails coat itself only became mainstream decades later in Regency period--- when everyone seemed to want to dress like Beau Brummell. The basis of the look, however, was as much military as civilian and the "civilian" elements more imported from the Continent (French revolutionary style) than home grown. One needs to recall the impact of Napoleon Bonaparte on French fashion in the early 1880s. This also lead to rather spectacular uniforms. The Napoleonic Wars, in turn, exposed these military uniforms to a very wide audience and elements were feed back into civilian design. There were, of course, within Europe much counter-reaction to ""Sans Coulotte", none-the-less, French Revolutionary style also ended the dominance of breeches and brought forth the style of trousers.