A hidden garment: Englishmen’s waistcoats to the end of the seventeenth century

 

This is an amended version of a paper given to the International Conference on Historical Clothing and Textiles in Europe, organised by the University of Latvia, 26-28^th February 2026. Some of the images used have been removed and replaced with hyperlinks.

Figure 1: Detail from a 1640s waistcoat in the Glasgow Museums collection

Abstract

From the early fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century men’s waistcoats were a hidden garment. In north-western Europe they were worn between the shirt and the doublet for warmth. In Scandinavia they may have been known as nattrøjer or yllentröja, whilst in England they were referred to as petticoats and then waistcoats.  Being an undergarment, they rarely appear in portraiture and only occasionally in genre paintings. There are survivals in museums across northern Europe, many of these are knitted and have been examined, but there has been less attention given to woven textile waistcoats, which may have been more common. This paper endeavours to match English written records, primarily from wills and probate inventories, but also wardrobe accounts, diaries, etc., with what little survives and can be seen. It examines the terminology, showing when waistcoats first appear in the English language and what was meant by the word. It also shows that waistcoats were worn across all levels of society, with costs, textiles and decorative choices changing with the status of the owner, even though the garments were not regularly seen. In the second half of the seventeenth century, with the putative beginning of the “three-piece suit” comprising coat, waistcoat and breeches, waistcoats became more visible and changed in shape and appearance. The problems museums face in using modern language to describe the surviving garments is also addressed.

Origins and Terminology

From the late fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century men’s waistcoats were a hidden garment. In north-western Europe they were worn between the shirt and the doublet for warmth. Being an undergarment, they rarely appear in portraiture it is possible to get occasional glimpses where a doublet has been left undone. As in the painting, by Pieter Corneliz Slingelandt of a man at breakfast, where his doublet is unbuttoned, showing the edges of an unbuttoned red waistcoat over his shirt, and also just showing at the neck and cuff.

Starting with the terminology, when do waistcoats first appear in the English language and what is meant by the word. The word appears to come from the earlier English word petticoat, when applied to a man. In c.1475  Russell has “Se that youre souerayne haue clene shurt & breche, a petycote, a dublett, a longe coote.” (1) Those are the  layers. The first English reference to a waist coat seems to be in 1519 when a record in Nottingham has payment for the “makyng of a waste cotte.” (2 p. 354)  

When Andrew Borde recommends that, “in wynter, Next your sherte use to were a petycote of skarlet, … In somner, use to were a skarlet petycote made of stamele or lynsye wolsye” he is talking of a waistcoat. (3 p. 249)  When Henry VIII was still Prince Henry in 1496/7 he received a petticoat of scarlet, and between 1533 and 1545 his wardrobe accounts have orders for thirty eight petticoats. (4 p. 90 & 96) Junius’s 1585 Nomenclatur has, “..a waste coate, or wollen peticoate,” which implies that the waistcoat and a man’s petticoat are the same thing.  (5 p. 163) As does Holland , “his Wastcoate or Peticoate bodie of woollen.” (6 p. 149)  This apparently interchangeable usage of petticoat and waistcoat continues through the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth. By the end of the seventeenth century in a book of English words not generally used, John Ray commented, “A Petticoat; is in some places used for a Mans Wastcoat.” (7) By the end of the seventeenth century, the word waistcoat has more or less completely replaced petticoat in common usage for men’s clothes.

 

Figure 2: Knitted silk waistcoat associated with Charles I. London Museum.

When were waistcoats seen

There are mentions of waistcoats at executions. In 1601  Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was executed, “… the Prisoner, who came in a Gowne of wrought Velvet, a blacke Sattin sute, …  opening and putting off his doublet, he was in a Scarelet Wastecoat.” (8 p. 1408)

Forty-eight years later King Charles also wore a waistcoat on the scaffold. The Museum of London holds a knitted waistcoat which has been associated with the execution, but  it is debatable. There have been many attempt at DNA analysis, and most recently at dye analysis. (9) The knitted waistcoat could  be pulled over the head, and not buttoned at the front, there is a comment in Brittons Bowre Of Delights of 1591, which has “he puts his armour over his ears like a waistcoat.” (10 p. 101) There are survivals of knitted waistcoats in museums across Europe, there is a very good paper by Maj Ringgaard. (11 pp. 73-103) A second report of the execution states that,  the King was unclothed, “to his Sky-colour Satten Wastecoat.” (12 p. 1137) A satin waistcoat would not be knitted. There has been less attention given to woven textile waistcoats, which may have been more common, but there are less survivals. King Charles I purchased lots of waistcoats, no less than seventeen in one year, 1633, the majority of these were in woven silk fabrics. (13 p. 81)

When dressed informally, for example in a bedroom, waistcoats might be worn with a loose chamber gown over. The King Charles I had waistcoats made to match his chamber gowns, Charles I had “A chamber gown of crimson wrought velvet..and all the sleeves lined with plush.” With it was, “A waistcoat of carnation sattin to the same gown with two silver laces with coller and wings to it lined with plush.” (13 p. 87) The image at Figure 3 is of a gown that belonged to Francis Verney (1584-1615) of Claydon House, it is an Italian silk lined, like Charles I’s, with plush or shag. Plush or shag is a silk fabric with a long pile. While it does not have a matching waistcoat, it does have matching nightcap and slippers.

 

Figure 3: Francis Verney's gown. c.1610. Claydon House. ©️ Credit National Trust Images Robert Thrift

 

Waistcoats owned by royalty, nobility and gentry.

Prince Henry, Charles I’s elder brother who died in 1617, had some heavily decorated waistcoats. His 1608 accounts show “two waistcoats of fine camericke, [a fine linen] wrought verie curiously in color silke, [embroidered] lined with taffeta sarsenet, bound with silver lace, £50” To put the cost in a financial perspective, an ordinary working man might expect to have an income of £5 or £6 a year, so one waistcoat is five years income.

A surviving waistcoat that belonged to Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles II), is in the collections of the Glasgow Museums.  The information we have is that it and a pair of slippers and a matching nightcap were left with Colonel Thomas Veel of Alverstone when the Prince visited in 1645. It is quilted and has a red silk satin outer. The waistcoat is shown at Figure 4 and a detail of the centre front at Figure 1.

Figure 4: Waistcoat associated with Charles II. c.1645. Glasgow Museums

Men of the status of gentlemen often had silk waistcoats. In 1649 James Master paid “for 3 ya of watchet sattin to me a waistcoat” (14 p. 185) However linens and mixed fabrics were also used for waistcoats. The 1641 accounts of the Marquis of Hertford record, six ells holland at 6 shillings the ell to make three waistcoats. (15 p. 17) These would have been white which, after red, is the main colour for waistcoats. In 1656 Matthew Wilson, esquire, owned “…three dimity wastcoates.” (16 p. 115) The composition of dimity is debatable. Florio in 1598 described Italian dimito as “a kind of coarse cotton or flannell,” but his 1611 edition he refers to it as “a kind of course linzie-wolzie.”  (17 p. 103) (18) By the time of Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary dimitty is “a fine kind of fustian or cloath of cotton.” (19)

The servants of royalty and nobility also received petticoats/waistcoats. Both the fools of Lady Margaret Beaufort in 1504, and of Katherine of Aragon in 1516-9, received petticoats, cotton (a woollen cloth) in one case, and blanket in the other. (4 p. 257 &303)

 

Figure 5: Detail from Isaac blessing Jacob, by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. 1642. Metropolitan Museum

Waistcoats owned by the “common sort”

Below the social levels of nobility and gentry, waistcoats appear in the wills and probates of yeomen and artisans, and even those below them. For example, in 1598 Roger Bushill, a husbandman (small farmer) owned “one wastecoate 8d.” (20 p. 153) Samuel Browne in 1601, who had an estate worth less than £2, had a waistcoat worth 2s 2d.. (21 p. 15) A 1629 a plumber had a waistcoat that was “Strood water red.” (22 p. 70) The area around Stroud in Gloucestershire was famous for its red dyes. George West, a 1637 mariner had a “one Red stuffe waiskote for him selfe” and a “playne white fustyane waskote,” while the goods on his ship, the Prudence, included four East Indies stuff waistcoats. (22 p. 103) Giles Moore, the rector of Horsted Keynes in Sussex,, had several waistcoats made, including in 1656 one of serge, paying one shilling for the making. (23 p. 145) By 1670 Moore is referring to his waistcoats as vests, having purchased more serge for “a Canonicall coat, a Vest, a paire of trousers.” (23 p. 124)

 

Figure 6: Fragment of a woollen knitted waistcoat or jacket. 17th century. Lindisfarne Priory. English Heritage.

Silk knitted waistcoats have been mentioned, but there is less evidence for wool knitted waistcoats for the lower classes. The image at Figure 6 is of one of the Lindisfarne fragments, and Ruth Gilbert has suggested that this may have come from a waistcoat or jacket. (25) There is also a tantalising reference in a life of Sir Philip Sidney, which says, “His wast-coat … not unlike the best sort of those wollen knit ones, which our ordinary watermen row us in.” (26 p. 20) Beyond this is very little evidence, though other archaeological fragments across Europe have also been interpreted as possibly from waistcoats. 

Waistcoat or vest

When did the waistcoat come out of hiding, and was it still a waistcoat? With the putative beginning of the “three-piece suit,” comprising coat, waistcoat and breeches, replacing cloak, doublet and breeches, waistcoats became more visible and changed in shape and appearance.

When the change starts to be made the garment under the coat is not referred to as a waistcoat, but as a vest. While vestment is the older word, usually referring to a garment worn by a priest, or by a king or official on some ceremonial occasion. The short word vest first appears in English in 1613. The brothers Robert and Anthony Shirley travelled to Persia in 1598. When Anthony Shirley finally returned England, he published a book, and here is the first reference to vests. “We were forced to send his maister three verstes [sic] of cloth of gold, for beholding his person.” (27 p. 20) Another traveller Thomas Herbert who went to Persia in 1626, also wrote a book and he writes of a Persian outer garment, being a vest. (28 p. 146) Robert Shirley  had a portrait of himself in Persian dress painted by Van Dyck, this is at Figure 7.

 

Figure 7: Sir Robert Shirley by Anthony Van Dyck. 1622. Petworth House, National Trust.

When in 1666 King Charles II decided to change fashion, Samuel Pepys wrote “The King hath yesterday in council, declared his resolution of setting a fashion for clothes” and few days later he wrote, “This day the King begins to put on his Vest..being a long Cassocke close to the body…, and a coat over it.” So again, unlike a waistcoat it is long. John Evelyn’s Diary also comments on the 18th October, 1666 he wrote, “The first time his Majesty put himself solemnly into the Eastern fashion of vest, changing doublet, stiff collar, bands and cloak, into a comely dress, after the Persian mode, …resolving never to alter it.”  (29) This has been taken as the start of the three piece suit, but the term vest for what was worn underneath the coat, disappears very quickly and the word waistcoat is used.

The move in terminology between waistcoat and vest, is it a waistcoat, is it a vest and what was the difference, can be seen from these accounts of the Ferrers Family of Tamworth Castle, from the period 1669-70, where vest and waistcoats are referred to alternately, and one is referred to as a short vest. (30)

      

“June 1669:  For altering ye sleeves of a black farinde coatt and vest wth silk 2s

August 1669: making yor stripd druggett wastcoat and breeches 18s

April 1670: makeinge yor short vest of strpd flowerd stuff lind wth sarsnett 8s

June 1670: makeinge yor sad coloured mixt estamen coate & breeches the coate lyned wth stripd sarsnett & wastcoate of the same & lynd wth the same & inne lynd wth callaco 18s”

 Because new style waistcoats lengthened and became more accessible, they developed pockets, all waistcoats had sleeves. But while in the 1660s and 1670s, gentlemen are having vests made for under their coats, merchants are selling waistcoats on their own, not as part of a suit. A mercer Sylvester Widmere in 1668 had in stock 66 waistcoats of various types. Where a colour was mentioned, they came in red or white, and ranged in price from 5d to 3 shillings. (31 p. 35)

These waistcoats become less hidden, more visible as the fashion became to wear your coat open, so as to show your waistcoat. As well as pockets, waistcoats developed embroidered decoration on the visible areas. For the common man this suit of coat, waistcoat and breeches was worn throughout society, but they were not necessarily matching garments. John Dale a Wiltshire yeoman had in 1680 a suit comprising, “one woosted camlett cooat, one cloth paire of britches, one sarge wascoot 10s” (21 p. 165) While Timothy Burrell’s footman was promised a livery coat and waistcoat every two years. (32)

Hidden, or underwaistcoats

There may be still “hidden” waistcoats, underwaistcoats. In 1680 Buckinghamshire man, John Thornton had in his shop, “..linnen cloath..underwaistcoates, bodys, stockings, caps, semsters waire...£66 11s 10d” (31 p. 150) Semster’s ware is anything made by semsters or semstresses, not tailors, semsters work in linen. A sign that a waistcoat is of the “hidden” variety is that they appear with other items of underwear, for example the coffee seller, John Kimber in 1681 has “9 pair of drawers & 3 wastcoates £1 0s 0d” (33 p. 120) The image at Figure 8 is probably an underwaistcoat. It is a plain white linen waistcoat, the reason that this waistcoat has one sleeve tied with bows, is because in March 1702 King William III fell from his horse and broke his collarbone, so the sleeve of this waistcoat was cut open to allow easier access for the broken shoulder. 

   

Figure 8: Waistcoat of white linen belonging to William III. 1702. Rijksmuseum

There were still hidden knitted waistcoats. A red silk knitted waistcoat belonging to William III, survives in the collection of the Royal Historic Palaces. So, by the end of the seventeenth century, there were two types of waistcoat, those that are seen and those that are hidden.

Museums and the problems of terminology in databases

The issues of terminology have come up quite a lot in this paper. Recently there was an article which resonated with me as a researcher. It was entitled, “I’m Not Searching the Right Words”: User Experience Searching Historic Clothing Collection Websites. (34)  This garment [Figure 9]  was excavated in London. It is sixteenth century and in the London Museum. The headline information on the museums website says Undershirt/Vest. This is modern usage American English under shirt, and UK English vest, implying that it is worn under not over, the shirt. The idea of a vest being worn under a shirt does not seem come in until the nineteenth century. What would this have been called at the time it was made? The museum description says “Knitted shirts or vests are mentioned in a list of knitted items in an Act of Parliament of 1552.” Except they are not. What the Act refers to are knit petticoats. (35)

“shall of the saide Woolles make Yarne any kynde of Clothe Chamlette Wolstede Sayes Stamyn Knythose Knytpetycotes Knytgloves Knytsleves Hattes Coyves Cappes Arrace Tapesserie Coverletts Gurddles, or any other thing used to be made of Wooll…”

“Knytpetycote” probably means a “Wastcoate or Peticoate bodie of woollen.” When researching any garment there is a need to think carefully about what it was called then, and it is called now.

Figure 9: Knitted garment. 16th century. London Museum

 

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