Men's nightgowns

 The gown, which was a major component of men’s wear in the sixteenth century, had moved in two different directions by the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the one hand it was a designator of occupation, becoming the wear of the legal, academic, and medical professions, and being worn by mayors, aldermen and burgesses of towns. On the other hand, it became the nightgown, a loose gown worn informally within the house, as can be seen in Samuel Pepys comment “Up, and in my night gowne, cap and neckcloth, undressed all day long.” (1 p. 30 July 1665)

Figure 1: Vermeer. The Geographer. 1669. Staedel Museum, Frankfurt

A connection was also assumed between the wearing of a nightgown, and having a scholarly disposition. Both Vermeer’s Astronomer (c.1668) and his Geographer (1669) [Figure 1] are depicted wearing loose gowns. By the eighteenth century this relationship causes Benjamin Rush (1746 –1813) to write, “Loose dresses contribute to the easy and vigorous exercise of the faculties of the mind. This remark is so obvious, and so generally known, that we find studious men are always painted in gowns, when they are seated in their libraries” (2) In 1666 Pepys had his portrait painted by John Hales (Hayls, 1600?-1679) wearing a gown, not one of his own, but an Indian gown which he had hired for the purpose. (1 p. March)

Nightgowns usually belonged to members of the upper and, possibly, middling classes. When the yeoman George Miller left a nightgown in his 1613 will he pointed out how he had obtained it, “unto Thomas Wynn gent[leman] the night gowne which was sometime my master Sir Charles Morison’s” (3 p. 54) In 1639 the clothes of the rich Bristol merchant, Nicholas Meredith were in total worth £25, only three items were mentioned specifically, two gowns and a nightgown, followed by “all his wearing apparrell both wollen & Lynnen.” (4 p. 112)

 

Figure 2: Sir Francis Verney's Nightgown. c.1610-15. National Trust, Claydon House.

 

Nightgowns at the beginning of the century may have been like the surviving loose gown owned c.1610-15 by Sir Francis Verney, which was of purple silk damask lined with grey silk shag. (5 p. 38 & 100) [Figure 2] Shag was a cloth that had a long velvet nap on one side, it was usually of worsted, but sometimes of silk. Between 1603 and 1613 King James I purchased eighteen nightgowns, usually of velvet or similar fabric, and often fur lined, one was described as of a “very rich rose colour wrought velvet, wrought with gold lace.” (6 p. 237) King Charles I also purchased nightgowns, sometimes as a set with a waistcoat, for example, “a nightgown of skiecullor brocated sattin lined with rich aurora cullor plush and a waistcoat to the same of aurora cullor sattine, trimmed with a gold and silver frenchwork open compass lace and buttons,” the set cost £75 7s 1d. (7 p. 87) Plush, like shag, was a fabric with a long nap giving it a shaggy pile.

The French term for a nightgown was a robe de chambre, and in 1634 Charles I’s wardrobe accounts have him purchasing “a chamber gown of crimson wrought velvet with two broad laces, and short sleeves laced all over, the lace being six times sewd on verie thicke with bigg buttons and large loopes on all the santes, and all the sleeves lined with plush.” This garment came with a waistcoat of carnation satin, the two items together costing £214 9s 9d. (7 p. 83)

The use of velvets, satins and damasks for nightgowns continued throughout the seventeenth century, but wool based fabrics were also used. In 1620 Thomas Jenney left to his nephew his “nightgown of tawny stuff.” (8 p. 2) When the rector Giles Moore wanted a nightgown in 1669 he bought five yards of purple serge to have one made. (9 p. 123) At the end of the century, in 1694, Richard Stapley bought four and a quarter yards of purple bays at 3s 6d a yard, to make into a gown. (10 p. 123)

Compared to these early, quite shaped garments, looser garments based on the Japanese kimono, became popular in England in the second half of the century. The Dutch referred to these garments as the japonse roc [Japanese gown], and William III ordered ‘Jappan gownes’ in both England and the Netherlands, there is a survival of one of his gowns in the Rijksmuseum. [Figure 3] (11 p. 65)  In England they seem to be referred to more often as Indian gowns. In 1661 Pepys purchased “an Indian gown for myself” for 34 shillings. (1 p. 1 July 1661) The following year James Master purchased an Indian gown for £2 12s 6d. (12 p. 349) An article by Susan North  examines in detail the introduction of this garment from the East via both the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and the English East India Company. (13 pp. 30-55)

Figure 3: William III nightgown. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

North’s article also looks at the difference in construction, using patterns from survivals and tailoring books, with the later nightgowns having more of the kimonos’ T shape, but with the side gores of the earlier nightgown. (13 p. 34)  A survival in the Victoria and Albert Museum, from the second half of the seventeenth century [Figure 4] shows this loose shape in a Chinese blue silk damask. Also in the V&A are the two 1690s dolls, Lord and Lady Clapham, who are both provided with informal nightgowns in silk of salmon-pink satin with a floral pattern in purple, pale blue, emerald green, lime green, orange and deep pink. Unlike the earlier nightgowns which were lined for warmth with shag, plush or fur, the later Japanese style nightgowns are lined in light silks.

Figure 4: Nightgown. c.1650-1720. Victoria and Albert Museum.

While some records show nightgowns being a single colour, or at the end of the century, like Lord Clapham’s, made in what are known as bizarre silks, stripes were also popular. The London Gazette in 1683 has a listing for a “A Night-gown of striped Sattin cloth-colour and Buff, another for a man about the same colours.” (14) The Dutch artist Cornelis de Man (1621–1706) produced several genre paintings depicting men wearing a striped japonse roc, though this may have been an artist’s prop, he is himself wearing a plain example in his portrait. The architect Sir William Bruce (1630-1710) is wearing a striped gown in his portrait in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. [Figure 5]

King Charles I may have had his chamber gown fastened with “bigg buttons and large loopes,” but the most common closure for these garments seems to have been a simple sash, as can be seen in Bruce’s portrait. Pepys in 1667 went “to Temple Bar to a India shop, and there bought a gown and sash, which cost me 26s” (1 p. 5th Oct.) The rector Giles Moore purchases silver clasps for his nightgown in 1669, at 2 shillings these were, as he says, “was more by 8d than my former cost.” The following year, when he is in London, he records “exchanging an Old paire of silver claspes for a New 2s 4d.” (9 pp. 123, 124)

 

Figure 5

 

 

In London these gowns could be purchased from specialist shops. Thomas Cole’s shop had in stock, at his death in 1667, “38 Indian Gownes, small & great” that were valued at £11. (15) Giles Moore purchased the components for his nightgowns, and had his tailor make them up, noting in 1669 when the costs were different from the previous occasion, and paying for: “5 yards of Purple Searge for a nightgown costing 22s, silver claspes 2s (which was more by 8d than my former cost),[and] making, silke & galoone 6s (when as for the former gowne I had onely 5 yards of galoone 1s 4d, a paire of silver clasps 1s 4d, a q'tr of purple silke 3d & making it but 2s onely). He bought another nightgown in 1676 this time of purple bays, the making costing four shillings. Being a thrifty person, two years later in 1678 he records, “for 7 yards of galoone to new bind myne Old night gowne payd J. W. 9d” (9 pp. 133,135)

Nightgowns were worn primarily around the house. At about 3 o’clock on the morning of 2nd September 1666, on being woken and told of “a great fire they saw in the City,” Pepys wrote, “So I rose and slipped on my nightgowne,” and went to look out of a window. It was sometimes worn out of doors, Pepys records speaking to the surgeon James Pearce “in his nightgown in the street.” (1 p. 1 Jan 1668) At the time of the ill-fated Scottish Darien Scheme in 1698 a voyager took with him eleven ells of tartan for a nightgown. (6 p. 239) In 1711 Richard Steele wrote, ““Our  coffee-house  is  near  one  of the  inns  of  court,  [where]… some  of  [the customers] are  ready  dressed  for  Westminster  at  eight  in a  morning,  …  and others come in their nightgowns to saunter away their time.” (16)

References

1. Pepys, Samuel. Diary. [Online] [Cited: June 12, 2024.] https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary.

2. Fortune, Brandon Brame. Franklin & His Friends: Portraying the Man of Science in Eighteenth-Century America. Philadelphia  : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

3. Munby, L. M. Life and death in Kings Langley, wills and inventories 1498-1659. Kings Langley : Kings Langley Local History and Museum Society, 1981.

4. George, E. and S. eds. Bristol probate inventories, Part 1: 1542-1650. Bristol Records Society publication. 2002, Vol. 54.

5. Arnold, Janet. Patterns of Fashion: the cut and construction of clothes for men and women c.1560-1620. London : Macmillan, 1985.

6. Hayward, Maria. Stuart style: monarchy, dress and the Scottish Male Elite. London : Yale U.P., 2020.

7. Strong, Roy. Charles I's clothes for the years 1633-1635. Costume. 1980, Vol. 14, pp. 73-89.

8. Allen, M. E. ed. Wills in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk 1620-1624. Woodbridge : Suffolk Records Society, 1988.

9. Bird, Ruth, ed. The Journal of Giles Moore of Horsted Keynes, 1655-1679. Lewes : Sussex Record Society, 1971.

10. Tankard, Danae. Clothing in 17th century provincial England. London : Bloomsbury, 2020.

11. Wardle, Patricia. For our royal person : Master of the Robes bills of King-Stadholder William III. Apeldoorn : Paleis Het Loo, 2002.

12. Robertson, S. The expense Book of James Master 1646-1676 [Part 3, 1658-1663], transcribed by Mrs Dallison. Archaeologia Cantiana. 1887, Vol. 17, 321-352.

13. North, Susan. Indian gowns and banyans: new evidence and perspectives. Costume. 2020, Vol. 54, 1.

14. London Gazette. No. 1871/4, 1683.

15. Lemire, Beverly. Fashioning global trade: Indian textiles, gender meanings and European consumers 1500-1800. In: G Riello. How India clothed the world: the world of south Asian textiles 1500-1800. Boston : Brill, 2009.

16. The Spectator. 26th April, 1711.