Discover
Dressed: The History of FashionHow to Read a Suit, an Interview with Lydia Edwards (Dressed Classic)
Dressed: The History of FashionHow to Read a Suit, an Interview with Lydia Edwards (Dressed Classic)
How to Read a Suit, an Interview with Lydia Edwards (Dressed Classic)
Update: 2024-12-18
Share
Description
We revisit our interview with fashion historian and author Lydia Edwards in 2020 when she first joined us to talk about her then newly released book How to Read a Suit, the highly anticipated menswear version of her acclaimed How to Read a Dress.
Want more Dressed: The History of Fashion?
- Our website and classes
- Our Instagram
- Our bookshelf with over 100 of our favorite fashion history titles
- Listen ad free here!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/DRESSED
* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code DRESSED for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com
* Check out Rakuten: https://www.rakuten.com
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Comments
Top Podcasts
The Best New Mark Levin Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New VINCE Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New True Crime Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New Sports Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New Business Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New News Podcast Right Now - October 2025The Best New Comedy Podcast Right Now - October 2025
In Channel
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States00:00
00:00
1.0x
0.5x
0.8x
1.0x
1.25x
1.5x
2.0x
3.0x
Sleep Timer
Off
End of Episode
5 Minutes
10 Minutes
15 Minutes
30 Minutes
45 Minutes
60 Minutes
120 Minutes
Transcript
00:00:00
Please enjoy this episode from the Dressed Archive.
00:00:02
We will be back with Season 8 and on new Dressed content in February 2025.
00:00:08
Dressed The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.
00:00:12
Over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.
00:00:20
Every day, we all get dressed.
00:00:22
Welcome to Dressed, the history of fashion.
00:00:25
A podcast where we explore the who-what-when of why we wear.
00:00:29
We are fashion historians, Andrew Hose, April Callahan, and Cassidy Zachary.
00:00:34
April, today we get to learn all about the evolution of one of the most big-wittest fashion staples on the planet, the male suit.
00:00:45
And from one of our favorite fashion historians, Lydia Edwards.
00:00:49
Lydia is a fellow fashion historian and author joining us all the way from Perth, Australia.
00:00:54
And she lectures at the academic pathway program at the Edith Cohen University.
00:00:59
And also teaches costume history at Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts.
00:01:05
And her first book, How to Read a Dress, was published in 2017 to much acclaim.
00:01:10
And she also has a fabulous Instagram account of the same name How to Read a Dress.
00:01:15
But her new book, The First One, has now been followed up with How to Read a Suit, a guide to changing men's fashion from the 17th to the 20th century.
00:01:24
It was just released a couple months ago.
00:01:27
Lydia, welcome to the show.
00:01:28
Lydia, welcome to the show today.
00:01:30
It's such a pleasure to have you with us.
00:01:33
Thanks so much.
00:01:33
I'm really excited.
00:01:34
I guess I could also say tomorrow because you're actually calling me from the future.
00:01:38
Your 15 hours ahead of me in Australia.
00:01:41
Oh, I know.
00:01:42
It's crazy.
00:01:42
It's meant that one does have modern technology.
00:01:46
And I am sure many of our listeners are already aware of your book How to Read a Dress, was published in 2017 to rave reviews.
00:01:54
And you have a really popular Instagram account of the very same name, which is how you and I first met or first communicated with one another.
00:02:02
But I'm a huge fan of what you do and all your miserable Monday posts in that of the life.
00:02:09
Oh, gosh.
00:02:13
Yeah, that's been interesting.
00:02:14
Yeah, it's so fun and listeners, you will have to check her out because it's just a really fun and informative Instagram.
00:02:21
And of course, you're an incredibly gifted author.
00:02:24
We're so lucky that you published How to Read a Dress.
00:02:26
And now How to Read a Suit, which is out now.
00:02:29
It just was released in early February.
00:02:31
And How to Read a Suit is a continuation of this same theme as How to Read a Dress.
00:02:36
You are teaching readers how to quote unquote read and thus date and identify garment.
00:02:41
So I'm really curious, how did you first conceive of this type of format for a book?
00:02:45
It's an idea that I played with for a very long time before translating it into a book proposal as sure as often the case.
00:02:52
It's really born out of a couple of key things.
00:02:55
And I think firstly, the acknowledgement that we live in really uncertain times and nostalgia and that idea of an escape to the sartorial aesthetics of the past is really attractive to us in the 21st century.
00:03:08
And I think this is also evidenced by the vintage fashion resurgence and more TV and film adaptations of Austin and Dickens et cetera and ever before.
00:03:17
And of course, we've also got things like temporary dramas with the historical setting like Downton Abbey, which of course is hugely popular.
00:03:24
So audiences, we know want to know more about costume and this has been evidenced in the rising number of visitors to some of the biggest fashion museums in the world.
00:03:34
But I found through talking to people to students and just reading blogs and commentary on period dramas that audiences do find it hard to recognize the differences between close from different errors to any detailed degree.
00:03:47
And I think this isn't always helped by TV and film adaptations that have interesting and creative but essentially inaccurate costumes.
00:03:56
Things like the tutors and rain and there's reasons for those costume choices, but I think people can find it confusing sometimes.
00:04:03
And so being able to recognize those and and to understand where they came from and to recognize whether or not they're accurate for the time period that's being portrayed is I think a really valuable skill.
00:04:13
So the lay person, but also most for all of us who are interested in historic dress.
00:04:18
And it really came home to me one day walking around a fashion museum exhibit, which was brilliant, really informative and substantial, but practically of course couldn't display entries of how each and every style developed to the next such as distance space.
00:04:33
And I overheard two women moving from a sat gown from the 1760s to an early empire line dress and I heard them saying, but how did this massive skirt become such a slim dress?
00:04:43
What in the middle?
00:04:44
I don't get it.
00:04:46
So my idea was to produce something that people could take with them round and exhibit and use it in order to understand how those changes occurred and why and you could potentially use how to read the dress.
00:04:57
So how to read a suit when you're watching a period drama to if you are as nerdy as I am.
00:05:01
I might be something you enjoyed.
00:05:03
See, even as fashion historians, I find these books both incredibly helpful.
00:05:07
There's really nothing out there that's quite like it.
00:05:10
You really break down the each garment that you present down to the smallest of details.
00:05:15
And in this way, you're really teaching the reader to read and thus date the suit and someone like me, a fashion historian who doesn't maybe have the most expertise in men's where these books are incredibly helpful.
00:05:26
And revelatory in so many ways you have so many fun tidbits and facts in there that we're going to get into here in a bit.
00:05:33
I think it's important to clarify that in how to read a suit you are specifically exploring the evolution of the European American suit fashions and you're doing it from the 17th to the 20th centuries as they specifically relate to men.
00:05:45
In the introduction, you speak about the suit as a symbol of masculinity.
00:05:50
And I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit more about that.
00:05:53
Yeah, the word masculinity is really interesting in many ways.
00:05:56
And I think particularly because across the centuries, it was women's dress that has usually taken elements of masculine dress and appropriated them.
00:06:03
But this has rarely happened the other way around.
00:06:05
So the idea of masculinity very broadly could be applied to many types of clothing, really.
00:06:11
But I think it's not since the 19th century in particular suit has been seen as a man's province and ties into our modern ideas of what masculinity means.
00:06:21
And those ideas have only been in place really since the 18th century when the suit was relatively new before this time, those ideas could be quite different and they didn't link that closely to clothing in many respects.
00:06:32
I think we need to consider first that a suit is easier to move around in than address its more practical, which has always fitted in with the active and professional lives that are of scribe to men and to masculinity.
00:06:43
And physically in the same way as a dress does a woman, a suit enhances elements of a male body that we traditionally see as being markers of that gender, wide shoulders and chest, a slim waist and hips,
00:06:54
ideally.
00:06:55
And it gives men a sense of dominance, but it also makes them blended to a crowd and conform.
00:07:01
And for many minutes, still the only acceptable professional uniform women, I think, now have a lot more choice in the workplace.
00:07:08
So perhaps it's this limited choice that says quite a lot about how prescribes on notions of masculinity still are and how much conversely that idea of fashion is seen still as a more feminine trade.
00:07:21
And of course, that is certainly starting to change, but I think in reality, we still got quite a long way to go.
00:07:26
Yeah, absolutely.
00:07:27
I'm glad you brought that up because this idea that masculinity and femininity, and we talk about this a lot on the podcast across the past couple seasons, this idea that gender is a societal construct.
00:07:38
So what it means to be masculine, what it means to be feminine can be defined by what we wear.
00:07:43
And very strictly, I've given a couple different interviews about the history of menswear and relation to pants and women and pants in particular.
00:07:50
And pants are really one of the most gendered garments in history, as is the skirt or the suit.
00:07:55
Your book is really a testament to how that masculinity was defined, but also how it kind of changes and progresses through what men have worn historically again,
00:08:05
such an incredible book.
00:08:05
Thank you.
00:08:05
This is a huge feat of research.
00:08:08
Can you tell us a bit about your source material and how you source material for this book.
00:08:14
You have extant garments, fashion illustrations from the periods paintings, photographs.
00:08:20
How did you find your material and how did you pick what to put into the book?
00:08:25
Oh, God, that was, as you can imagine, the hardest thing because it's like a box of chocolates out there.
00:08:30
There is so much stuff that you can see from.
00:08:33
And of course, as you'll know, you're limited by things like budget and copyright with certain images.
00:08:38
And I came across so many that I couldn't use.
00:08:40
And that was really sad.
00:08:41
But there are so many that I could and I found that as fabulous as paintings are and I come from an art history background.
00:08:48
I really love analyzing paint paintings and portraits and things.
00:08:51
But they're not always reliable historical indicators of real clothing, as we know.
00:08:55
And I knew that I wanted to include as many examples of real suits as possible, as well as using photographs of them being worn in real situations or real bodies.
00:09:04
Because this just gives us so much more of an idea of how they were worn that when they're on the mannequin, it gives us an insight into the daily life of the wearer and if that's that's basing times.
00:09:14
And also, as with how to read address, I wanted to utilize lesser known collections across the world, including museums in Australia and Sweden and smaller collections in the US,
00:09:25
particularly Schippensburg University.
00:09:27
Big shout out has gotten an amazing fashionable archive.
00:09:29
So I wanted that range and I wanted people to see things that haven't been published before.
00:09:34
I also needed a really broad range of suits, particularly in the 19th century to demonstrate that although black and other dark colors were the prevailing norm,
00:09:44
as we know, the shapes on the surface also looked very similar, but there were many subtle and important changes happening in menswear.
00:09:52
And I felt that using variant such as wedding seats, for example, gives an idea of how those changes progressed and gives that element of intimacy that I feel is really important for any fashion discussion.
00:10:04
It's really good to be able to ease garments, his life, we know something about ones that have a narrative around the more little story, because in this way, it becomes a remnant of a living, breathing thinking person,
00:10:15
and this side can often become lost.
00:10:17
So that's something I really tried to emphasize when I was researching.
00:10:20
And you do that incredibly well on your Instagram account as well.
00:10:23
You really show across the economic spectrum across the range what real people were wearing as well as what the upper class quote unquote fashionable people would have been wearing.
00:10:34
So I really appreciated the book for that range as well.
00:10:38
Your book is divided across seven chapters beginning in 1666 and actually with a very specific month in 1666.
00:10:48
So I'm hoping you can tell us all what happened in October of 1666.
00:10:54
Yeah, this is a great fashion history story, which is unique because this is perhaps the only sample we have of a major garment, the seat whose origin or at least the first wearing we can trace to a specific time and location.
00:11:07
And we have some real peeps to thank for this because in his diary, he described seeing Charles the second dressed in I quote his best coat and legs rusted with black ribbon like a pigeon's leg.
00:11:18
And this initial incarnation was pretty far removed from what we perceive a suit to be today.
00:11:24
It was barely draped and loose around the body.
00:11:28
But it was still made up of those three principal components, a vest, a tunic and reaches.
00:11:33
And peeps mentions other men, including the Duke of York stepping outside in the new fashion, which was obviously done in a very public way.
00:11:40
Charles had said that he wanted to introduce this new seat of clothes in an effort to make fashion more equal across society.
00:11:48
And it was obviously a very public airing when it was first produced.
00:11:52
And then peeps, I think it was November the 4th of that year, he also wore the vest and coat and was really a keen promoter of them.
00:12:00
As with many new fashion to suit went through several different iterations, including extremely wide petticoat breaches, which remained because they look like women's petticoats.
00:12:10
But by the 1680s, we can start to see a garment that fits much more closely with what we recognize today, cut much closer to the body, it was worn with a shirt and a cravat and exesorise with a hat,
00:12:21
a sword and heels, shoes or boots.
00:12:23
So that we start to see that 18th century suit coming in in around the last 20 years or so of the 17th century.
00:12:30
Most of this time would have had, it's not necessarily what we might think of as a vest today, right?
00:12:35
It was quite long, it could even have sleeves, but it's this idea that it's visible under this coat or jacket, right?
00:12:42
Yeah, exactly.
00:12:43
And so it's because you say a really loose kind of baggy version of what we go on to see as the vest always coach.
00:12:49
And I think it what's so many places that are given as it is its place of origin, page describes it as being Persian, but there's also descriptions of the being from hungry from France.
00:12:58
There's lots of different ideas going on.
00:13:00
So it has a lot of influences, but yeah, in essence, it's an early kind of version of the vest.
00:13:05
And for our listeners that don't know, I should clarify that Charles II was the English king who was restored to the throne only I think 10 years before he launched this new trend.
00:13:15
Yeah, so we're going to keep evolving into the 18th century, where I'm hoping you can tell us about how the suit progresses in style into the 18th century,
00:13:26
which is a period that you also call quote the swan song of the pre 20th century male peacock.
00:13:32
Yeah, the 18th century is the longest chapter in the book and you can see why because it provides this incredible kind of conveyor belt of changing styles and attitude.
00:13:43
Yeah, it's really fabulous and there's so much to choose from and we can see the precursor of you called so called great male renunciation of the 19th century.
00:13:51
We start out really with a very broad wide skirted silhouettes that reach to a peak in around 1720 and up to six pleats were inserted into either side of the center back opening of a jacket.
00:14:03
And this gave her massive flair to the hips that was sometimes exaggerated with wire or buck and really wasn't dissimilar to a woman silhouette at the time and women did point this out that men were imitating them rather than the other way around.
00:14:17
And aside from increasingly lavish ornamentation it's a really good example of how feminine and masculine styles were more intertwined in the early days of the suit, there was less difference between what men and women wore.
00:14:29
And in the following couple of decades into the 18th century, previously badly breaches, which sat really quite low on the hips and there was sort of very baggy rear to them became a lot more slim fitting a lot more close fitting.
00:14:42
And coats as well were shaped to the body with a very kind of sleek slim flat line that was seen in corresponding women's wear going into 17 seventies and it's really easy to date suits from the 1750s to 17 because we see the coat fronts becoming ever more slanted but back towards the rear.
00:15:00
And this showed off much more of the waistcoat which was hugely embroidered if you were wealthy and the breaches and held a man shoulders back and I think moving on from then this shape continues at the influence of anglomania around this time made a big difference in attitudes towards simplicity and dress so that influence of English riding costume as a very of course very basic way of describing what was going on English attitudes towards education.
00:15:29
But in terms of men's dress, it was really to do with countryside inspired colors and fabric, so brown and green wool started to overtake pink and purple silk and satins.
00:15:40
And the last two decades were punctuated by other specific styles such as the macaroni and the fop, the song who lot the incloiabla and these were influenced by very different societal trends.
00:15:53
But I think they all work to accelerate men's clothing from being a peacock right up into the dandy which came in the early 19th century.
00:16:01
Right and we are going to hear more about that after brief sponsor break.
00:16:12
So Lydia, you write that the 18th century was quote the first uninterrupted 100 year span in which the suit as we know it today was worn by all men and I love that one possible and I mentioned this earlier.
00:16:26
You write about what the everyday man would have worn at this time.
00:16:30
Why is that narrative important to you and to the history of dress you already talked about it a little bit.
00:16:35
I think it's crucial and it's so important not to assume that styles change very quickly and that everyone, you know, would have wore the cop hat for example or Michael step or whatever was going on.
00:16:46
As we know in reality trends move much more slowly and most people would have seen very little change in their clothing during their lifetime.
00:16:54
And I think this is something that's often lost in fashion history studies and museum exhibits and it's understandable probably because upper class garments are generally more vehili appealing there's many more of them to exhibit and to go around.
00:17:07
And work for people's clothes would have been worn and remade until they found a part so there was still influence as far as possible by fashionable trends but not to anywhere near the same extent and it's really difficult to find good examples of what they would have looked like from those obvious reasons.
00:17:22
And in the book I've tried to show a diverse range and the principal aim is of course to illustrate the general changing shape of menswear but it's important to remember the reality.
00:17:32
So the suit I think is really important in this respect because more than the dress it's a key example of egalitarianism and fashion and from its creation in the second half of the 17th century.
00:17:44
We can see that class barriers were slowly sonned to break down a bit more and this is evidence in the way suits were made and worn.
00:17:51
And I think this is also part of that proclamation that Charles the second made that he wanted to have something that could be worn by all men.
00:17:58
So on the face of it a coat and breaches were generally not vastly different in terms of cut and fit the distinction was seen in the quality of fabric the closest the fit the trimmings the accessories.
00:18:09
And of course in the way that were carried himself at the time when men had dancing lessons and deportment lessons they were wealthy so that would make a big difference in the way the suit was perceived on on particular bodies.
00:18:20
But there's a section in the book where I've used two 17th century fashion plates alongside each other to demonstrate this and one shows an orange seller and the other is a young man of fashion.
00:18:31
And we can see that the orange seller is quite easily able to imitate elite clothing simply by using red bows tied in certain positions on his coat having cuffs made in a particular color.
00:18:42
So in this way this suit was a great leveler in a much more profound way than the dress and and it was relatively easy for men to get hold of ready made jackets and breaches from peddlers and from very early examples of ready maids are stalls and shops.
00:18:57
And although as I said these wouldn't have been as beautifully cut as the upper class ones and they would have been made to last in a different kind of way.
00:19:05
It was something that men could as buy to and reach out to in a much more much easier way than have been seen before so the seat is read recommendations I think in this respects.
00:19:14
Yeah and we are going to talk about that in a couple of questions but before we do while we're speaking about the everyday man and before we get out of the 18th century.
00:19:22
I really want you to talk about the suit of the songs club he mentioned earlier.
00:19:27
Yeah, the sounds club is a really interesting figure because he was so politically significant.
00:19:32
But in terms of fashion history is influence has been somewhat overplayed I think and we know that of course the phrase solky lot translates is without breaches.
00:19:40
And this suggests a seismic shift in menswear which had been dominated by breaches for over a century.
00:19:47
And I think it's easy to grab on to this as the starting point for trousers when in fact it would be another couple of decades before they really took off thought would remain and were universally accepted.
00:19:57
So the song a lot he screamed comfort really with his loose trousers.
00:20:01
His droopy cap and his swap like jacket and of course he was this incredibly powerful symbol of the disillusionment of the common people during the French revolution and because he was quite an outside of figure and a figure we don't necessarily see in other context throughout the 18th century.
00:20:16
He's important and he's often brought up as a big influence but I think in reality the wearing of trousers is a much more complex and much longer story.
00:20:25
So I think although he's obviously important I think it's a different reasons that are often cited.
00:20:30
But he was ahead of his time so I totally speaking he was a portent of what was to come much later so I had to include him for those reasons.
00:20:37
Yeah and we trust listeners we've done an entire episode on the fashions of the French revolution as well as the fashions of the post revolutionary use subculture the on Criabla and Mavias who are fabulous.
00:20:50
But we really have yet to discuss and detail the emergence of the dandy figure in the early 19th century.
00:20:55
So Lydia what is a dandy what did he wear and how did he influence fashion during this period.
00:21:01
Okay yeah it's a possible to talk about 19th century without the dandy because he was a figure that really set in stone that uniform that we have for men in the 19th century.
00:21:11
And I think the word dandy is often used interchangeably with terms like fob but this is slightly misguided because I think the assumption of the 18th century thought is that he was vain to the point of foolishness.
00:21:22
He admired garrisonous and glamour in fashion whereas by contrast the dandy essentially wore an immaculate version of late 18th century riding dress.
00:21:32
So he have a morning coat which was of course so cold because men were typically riding the morning and breaches.
00:21:38
And the name most associated with dandy is a mizbo brumble regarded as the first dandy and he had this idealized male silhouette which he achieved through exquisite fit with the addition of darts and padding to produce these uninterrupted lines.
00:21:51
And to really show off the best kind of elements of the ideal male physique.
00:21:56
This could include having your calves padded as well, having your arms padded so it looked like you just been working out a costume in many respects for the early dandies and certainly for him.
00:22:06
And the dark coat and the light trousers that we associate with at least the first half of the 19th century was born out of brumels innovation although it became standardized.
00:22:15
For him, I think dandy is and was a state of mind, cleanliness was hugely important and we can see this carrier crossing to the rest of the century.
00:22:23
So this was really I think a good way to sum it up is to say it was an intense interest in masculine clothes but without the need to be ostentatious.
00:22:31
The devil was in the detail you didn't need to have embroidery or trimming on a coat for it to be considered beautiful and beautifully cut.
00:22:39
And as we saw in the 17th century, it was also a look that could be more easily taken up by other classes of society.
00:22:45
And that's something I show in the book as well of somebody cleaning troops who's still wearing an example of a tail coat with guilt buttons.
00:22:52
And obviously it's very raggedy and it's very down at heel, but it was something that was universally taken up.
00:22:58
But I think that change in attitude towards clothing and kind of idea that men could be interested in fashion, but without it being.
00:23:05
What was now being seen as feminine for me and pay could bright is something that Bromwell was really responsible for.
00:23:12
And this post-revolutionary period, we see the emergence of full-length trousers, correct?
00:23:17
Prior to this, a prior to the revolution, wearing breaches would stop just below the knee.
00:23:22
We said the songs collot are wearing trousers, but perhaps not the ones that would actually influence fashion.
00:23:27
When do full-length pants really come into play in the 19th century?
00:23:31
Yeah, of course I said a mention this with the dandy because Bromwell did bring in trousers, although he didn't wear them exclusively, he did wear breaches too.
00:23:38
But they really started to come in with him and they first started with what were known as pantaloons, which were very tight, clinging form of trousers, which dandies were particularly fond of because it showed off those leg muscles.
00:23:50
But it really wasn't until come the later 1820s and into the 30s that trousers were a daily accepted staple for men.
00:24:00
Interesting.
00:24:01
It's later, I think we tend to think of it as being much earlier with the regency dandy and the bow earlier on in the century.
00:24:09
But it is a lot later and that's why when I was talking about the song "Helotto" was kept as saying that this was the start of trousers, this was a kind of punctual lock and outlier.
00:24:18
Yeah, it took a while to become ingrained.
00:24:20
And so the 19th century is really when we see the suit, as you've mentioned, solidified almost as this uniform of masculinity.
00:24:28
And you also mentioned this, what psychoanalysts John Flugel coined the great male renunciation.
00:24:33
So that great male renunciation is basically underscored by this logic, professed by enlightenment thinking, it's during this period that the quote-unquote rational sex,
00:24:43
which are men, of course, abandoned his claim to be considered beautiful.
00:24:47
And that's what Flugel wrote and then he goes on, he henceforth aimed at being only useful.
00:24:52
So in other words, fashion and its associated frivolities, its embellishments were left to the irrational sex, to the feminine.
00:25:00
So can you talk a little bit more about this transition and then how the industrial revolution helped to both democratize and standardize the suit across the economic spectrum?
00:25:10
This is obviously hugely important in the 19th century.
00:25:13
And I think it speaks to those subtleties of 19th century dress that I mentioned earlier and indeed contradictions as well, because although men's dress was definitely planar, it was more uniform,
00:25:24
it was more conservative in this century.
00:25:26
We can definitely see small splashes of colour and innovations in cut that mirrored what was happening in far more elaborate women's wear.
00:25:42
And I say one example of this in the book, it's a blue silk coat from the early 80s, with a slight volume at the sleeve head, and a shaped knit in waist and wide, caustic trousers that are heavily pleated at the front.
00:25:46
And if you place this next to a woman's dress of the same era, it's quite easy to see the similarities and silhouettes.
00:25:52
But into the 1840s, despite growing technological advances of the industrial revolution that made it easier to create elaborate clothing on a ground or ground of scale,
00:26:03
clothing for men and women became much simpler, more severe.
00:26:06
Most men wore a kale coat with trousers or pantaloons on a daily basis, and the only flash of colour would usually be seen in a pattern waistcoat.
00:26:14
So the introduction of the frot coat in the 1850s is really where we see the cementing of the professional bourgeoisie in society.
00:26:23
And it was worn from then until the early 20th century, it became a staple of urban work and leisure wear and encouraged a more uniform regularity in men's wear.
00:26:33
And frot coats are identified by the fact that they were double breasted, they were knee length and always made with a waist seam.
00:26:40
So these are the three principal things to look out for and makes frot coats quite easy to identify.
00:26:46
Thank you for that's one of my notes.
00:26:49
It's like, please explain a frot coat because no matter how many times I've seen them, I can never distinguish them.
00:26:56
So that really helps.
00:26:57
Thank you.
00:26:58
Oh, believe me, it took me a while.
00:26:59
It is so there are so many different types of jackets and things out there, but the frot once you know what to look for that waist seam, the knee length and the double breast, they are everywhere in mid to like 90th century images.
00:27:11
And they arose at around the time that an affordable ready to wear market became a normal part of consumerism.
00:27:17
New movie scenery and labor-saving techniques meant that men of nearly all classes could own one of these coats and it was a style that was generally able to flatten most ages and body types.
00:27:27
So it is a really important part in the history of men's dress.
00:27:30
And I think it's interesting that at the same time as there was such an emphasis on the middle class and office workers are not constituted professional dress, we see a great demand for clothing that cater to another side of professional life,
00:27:42
which was time off.
00:27:44
Now people had annual leave starting that kind of idea of taking holidays.
00:27:49
And the 1860s introduced a game changer, which was the sack or blatant known as the lounge suit.
00:27:55
And this needs to be mentioned because it was initially adopted for informal leisure where but it became acceptable much more broadly so for professional and city attire to.
00:28:05
And by the end of the 1860s, most men would have owned one of these sacks suits.
00:28:10
And it's basically the precursor to the modern business suit that we recognize today.
00:28:15
So in contrast to the frock, it was usually single breasted.
00:28:17
It didn't have a way seen.
00:28:19
We see the coat planning straight down from the shoulders without breaking up the torso.
00:28:23
Sometimes they were incredibly baggy and loose and they look extremely comfy.
00:28:27
So they were much easier and freer to wear men in contrast to women had a much easier time of it when it came to the sacks suit.
00:28:34
It would be teamed with trousers of a different color or pattern or they could it could all be worn in the same fabric.
00:28:39
And this was known as a set of details or ditto suits.
00:28:43
Yeah, that phrase that comes up so often that's all that really meant was that it was a suit in the same color, and made of the same fabric.
00:28:51
And so this is popularized by people like Prince Albert and variants were made for summer winters sporting.
00:28:56
And by the time the century ends, we can see quite a diverse spectrum of men's wear.
00:29:01
So it was strikingly multi design, making real white use in society.
00:29:04
Yeah, and you really in the 19th century, you're seeing the sacks suit lay the foundation for what we, as you said, would know as the modern suit.
00:29:11
So you see the first full button front shirts introduced turned down collars.
00:29:16
You see that finally that cravat has kind of turned into what we would recognize as a long tie.
00:29:21
It's pretty incredible to see that transition across the 19th century.
00:29:25
So my favorite little tidbits that you threw in there, though were the trouser press that was invented in the 1890s.
00:29:32
And then the tape measure was a product of the 19th century never would have known.
00:29:37
Yeah, the tape measure was it's I cannot find this specific date where it's original what it originally came about.
00:29:44
We clink it back to the dandy as well, because we know it originated roughly in sort of the 1820s.
00:29:50
I'd be a bit before.
00:29:51
So it was certainly used when people like Bromwell were creating these remarkably pristine the tale of suits that fitted every angle of the body.
00:29:58
It's hard to imagine how that could be done without a tape measure.
00:30:01
But of course, when it came to producing ready to wear clothes and clothes that could be purchased at department stores, of course, going into the 20th century.
00:30:09
The tape measure became indispensable when it came to men's catering.
00:30:13
So it's a really important item that I think again is it's cost over sometimes and isn't mentioned, but it was a kind of underpinning if you like to to making clothes accessible for men of all levels of society.
00:30:23
Yeah, and ready to wear of course resulted in a lot of the standardization that we're all familiar with today and the clothes that we wear.
00:30:30
But so we have the foundation for the modern suit.
00:30:32
Of course, it's not entirely what we would recognize today.
00:30:35
These colors were detachable.
00:30:37
They and the cuts could also be detachable so that you could take them off and wash them.
00:30:42
They were button flies, no zippers yet.
00:30:44
And we are going to head into the 20th century after a brief sponsor break.
00:30:51
As ladies have all been there, filling a smidge off the days before your cycle is something that we have all experienced at one point or another for some of us is occasional for others.
00:31:02
It's a monthly battle, which is why happy mammoth has created extra control.
00:31:07
A capsule containing science-backed herbal extracts that help support hormonal health,
00:31:18
especially in women who suffer from PMS.
00:31:23
The way estrogen control eases PMS is quite interesting.
00:31:23
The ingredients help support the liver.
00:31:23
And that's where hormones get processed, especially estrogen.
00:31:24
So when the estrogen isn't processed wrong, the liver this can potentially trigger PMS.
00:31:29
Extra control is made specifically for women who are premenopausal.
00:31:32
So it's perfect for women that haven't entered menopause yet.
00:31:36
In fact, it's amazing for perimenopause when hormones start to fluctuate and PMS can hit hard.
00:31:42
For a limited time, you can get 15% off on your entire first order at happy mammoth dot com.
00:31:48
Just use the code dressed at checkout.
00:31:50
That's happy mammoth dot com and use the code dressed for 15% off today.
00:31:58
Welcome back dress listeners.
00:31:59
We are now heading into the 20th century where we start to see more and more examples of leisure and sportswear in men's attire.
00:32:07
Lydia, can you please tell us about the ways that both sports and Ivy League style influences suit in the early 20th century?
00:32:14
Yeah, we have to go back to the sack suit for this because as I started to say, it paid the way for many variations on the leisure theme.
00:32:30
And there was an increased emphasis on sports as we know for both sexes, which was a big part of this and men as well as women had clothes that was slightly emancipated for cycling, golfing, walking, things like that.
00:32:33
And travel also had a huge amount to do with it, especially since the rise of the railway in the early 90th century and increasing ease of travel into the 20th expanded this area even further.
00:32:44
So differences in travel and these kind of slightly modified sports clothes were not so much he cut, but in a lack of lining the fabric use the color and accessories because it was still important for men to appear smart and semi formal.
00:32:59
Even when they were playing sport or traveling long distances, so those kind of rules of etiquette were still there.
00:33:04
But I think the main thing to point out is that because of the popularity of these activities and the fact that more and more people had leisure time to spare, there was an increasing acceptability of sports clothing worn as everyday day wear outside of the physical active cycling.
00:33:19
You could wear sweaters under a jacket or nicobockers or longer trousers made from different colors and patterns to the shirt.
00:33:26
And even if they weren't playing sport, even if they were going to watch your friend and play golf or they were going just to have a day in the country, you could have this mix and match going on and it was more acceptable.
00:33:35
So this relaxation and lack of uniformity continued into 1910s and 20s.
00:33:41
And I think by the time we get to the 20s in part due to that static nature of the war years in terms of fashion, we see this explosion of youth culture amongst the wealthy and the influence of college style in the UK and US,
00:33:54
which also had its roots and sportswear and students wanting to spend their free time playing sports and making easy transition from lecture hall to football field.
00:34:03
And there was also a growing disregard, I think, for what generations are done before.
00:34:08
And if we look at novels like bribes had revisited, there was a massive emphasis on beauty and youth before another war and the austerity of the first season fours who's came along.
00:34:18
So Oxford bags are trousers that are a lovely example of that.
00:34:23
I love them.
00:34:24
I love the mess.
00:34:25
They're just one of those things you look at in fashion history and you're like, oh my god, where did, how did that even happen?
00:34:31
And they were, of course, because of that very short lived, but they came to represent a decade.
00:34:36
And they basically originated as a way for students at Oxford University in the UK to hide shorter sporting Nicarbockers in the lecture hall.
00:34:45
So you couldn't go into a lecture wearing them.
00:34:47
In now, you know, I've got students turn up very practically nothing.
00:34:51
But of course, you had to dress in at least trousers and a sweater and a shirt and tie.
00:34:56
So they would cover these Nicarbockers with these huge Oxford bag trousers, which completely covered them up.
00:35:02
And then this meant that they would leave the lecture hall and get changed very quickly to go boating or whatever they were going to do.
00:35:07
I think, of course, lead to remember that these trends were, again, very much the province of the elite.
00:35:13
And we can also think about the raccoon coat that originated at Princeton in the 20s.
00:35:17
And that is so fascinating and sad, but fascinating.
00:35:26
Because it's exactly what it sounds like to dress with me.
00:35:31
Oh, yes, there's no surprises there.
00:35:34
And now, in our, obviously, our culture has not been keen on fur.
00:35:37
It's quite a shocking.
00:35:39
It really speaks to that elite group that went to university and shows that, of course, the Galatarianism in education hasn't quite come about yet.
00:35:46
It was such a flashy garment.
00:35:48
It was so unexpected.
00:35:50
And I'd never heard about it.
00:35:51
It's this huge fur coat being worn by these young gents, a college.
00:35:56
Absolutely.
00:35:57
Absolutely enormous.
00:35:58
Yeah.
00:35:58
And hugely expensive, of course, as well.
00:36:01
I think there were variants made for the people to get.
00:36:03
You could buy secondhand ones.
00:36:04
But it's if you wanted the real thing, it wouldn't exactly be cheap.
00:36:07
But the influence of these things, I think in this informality, did spread raw generally to the adoption of things like shirts with soft colors glazes instead of a suit jacket.
00:36:15
Both to hat, that type of thing, which could be worn across a wide distraught through society.
00:36:20
Yeah.
00:36:21
And I love, by the way, learning origin stories of garments or garment related phrases and words.
00:36:27
And your book is full of these revelations.
00:36:30
You talked about the ditto suit.
00:36:32
But one of my favorites is this, we have this standard in menswear to reveal a small amount of shirt cuff.
00:36:38
I was just with my husband, clicking at a suit today and he's very specifically said, I only show a quarter shirt cuff at the base of the suit sleeve.
00:36:46
Can you tell us about its original purpose?
00:36:48
Why that's there, as well as the origins of the term white collar worker versus blue collar worker?
00:36:55
Yeah.
00:36:56
Yeah.
00:36:56
This is a really interesting, yeah, such bit of social history, really.
00:36:59
And it represents societal anxieties and demands.
00:37:02
It's a double edged sword because clean white cuffs were an indication that you didn't do manual work.
00:37:07
Because, obviously, if you were doing manual work, you couldn't keep white cloths, please.
00:37:12
But at the same time, they were still detachable, which made for easy laundering.
00:37:15
So this showed that a man was wealthy enough to wear white cuffs, but not wealthy enough to own multiple shirts.
00:37:22
And you have the same strategy being used for collars.
00:37:25
So the term white collar worker consequently became used at any man who did like professional administrative, maybe managerial work.
00:37:33
More in terms of society's eyes at the time was more respectable, more gentlemanly work.
00:37:39
And blue collar worker means the opposite someone does manual work.
00:37:42
And this came from men wearing denim shirts and collars.
00:37:45
And I did a brilliant show on denim, which I listened to.
00:37:48
And the fact that this is a very working class fabric in its origin, a material that could be easily cleaned, it disguised as it was very long lasting.
00:37:56
Right, we still use these terms, but that's when it came from initially and the blue collar worker term, I think it came back more in the 1920s, so a bit later on.
00:38:05
So fascinating.
00:38:06
And I recently listened to the fabulous Dolly Parton's America podcast for any Dolly Parton fans out there.
00:38:12
It's so good.
00:38:14
But one of the scholars that was featured on there talked about the origins of the term redneck.
00:38:19
And it literally dates back to an actual wearing of red scarves around the neck of striking mine workers in the early 20th century.
00:38:29
And they were looked down upon and called redneck because of it.
00:38:32
And so it's fascinating.
00:38:34
Yeah, learning things like that.
00:38:36
It's just it's so incredibly fascinating, especially because you still hear these terms today.
00:38:41
So the suit, as we mentioned, more or less achieved its modern features in the 19th century and early 20th centuries, but that did not mean variations on the theme were stagnant far from it actually.
00:38:53
And of course, leave it to the rebellious youth to shake things up with their often subversive and controversial takes on the suit across the 20th century.
00:39:01
So I'm hoping you tell us a little bit about the zoo suit.
00:39:04
Oh, I love suit seats so much.
00:39:07
I really love them.
00:39:08
They're such a loud out there crazy trend.
00:39:11
But they have a really complex and layered history that that's less outwardly frivolous and happy.
00:39:16
They've come to be seen, I think, in relation to gangsters are often used in traditional gangster films and they have an air of glamour and exuberance, but they have really humble origins.
00:39:25
The suit itself is an exaggerated version of that wide shoulder double-breasted 40 style and it coincided with the rise of jitterbug and dance and jazz halls,
00:39:37
particularly in Harlem.
00:39:38
And it became notorious following race-fueled riots that took place in LA in June 1943.
00:39:44
And these were known as the zoo suit rights because of the massive young people wearing them.
00:39:49
So because of this jacket and trousers were associated with minority groups, working class youth and it did pave the way for other in your face styles that set the male teenager apart from the boy and the man.
00:40:02
There are also very few original examples remaining, which makes them really fascinating and even more poignant, I think, people obviously couldn't or wouldn't come onto them.
00:40:12
There are very few remaining for posterity.
00:40:14
And the zoo suit, of course, is just one example of one youth subcultures relationship to fashion.
00:40:19
As the 20th century progresses, we see the emergence of the teddy boys and the mods and we did a whole episode on them.
00:40:25
All of whom, you know, these young men have these very specific relationships to the suit and building their distinctive identities.
00:40:32
And I should say, of course, young men and women because we had teddy girls too and mod women.
00:40:37
So we have the 1950s, which is this pretty conservative postwar period, understandably.
00:40:43
But then, of course, that unfolds and explodes, I should say, into the sweet 1960s.
00:40:50
So how is this kind of standard, quote, unquote, masculine suit redefined during this era?
00:40:55
I don't think actually possible to exaggerate the seismic shift of the 60s for men as well as women.
00:41:10
Music was a cataclysmic influence and I was really happy to be able to show a Beatles suit in the book because I'm a Beatles fan and it was nice to be able to write about that.
00:41:10
And they especially were responsible for the ability of young men to move away, I think, from the legacies of their wartime fathers and we see this with the teddy boys in the previous decade.
00:41:21
They rode that first wave of youth culture and looked to their grandfathers at audiences for inspirations, their seats had a definite early 20th century spine, but were worn with very up to date rebelliousness and rejection of their parents generation.
00:41:35
I think I was focused in the book and go on to look at John Lennon's "Colourless Gray Seats", which was one of the first designs made famous by the band.
00:41:43
And this is interesting because rather than promote rebelliousness, the suits were intended to endear the Pirates of Fans by creating this clean image.
00:41:51
And that seems to have been successful, yeah, but they were also taken up in many other ways later into the 60s.
00:41:57
They highlighted non-Western versions of the style, particularly later in the decade when the Beatles traveled to India.
00:42:03
They helped promote Slower Power in the hippie movement.
00:42:06
And the narrow jacket, of course, is a symbol that came out of that too, worn by the first Prime Minister of India.
00:42:12
So this spoke to the spirit of protest and inclusivity that underpins a lot of 60s culture.
00:42:18
So we got that "Colourless" style really morphed quite nicely into the "Nerry" style later in the decade.
00:42:25
And although fans like the Beatles didn't wear suits for the entirety of their career, I think those suits were a way of men being able to experiment with different cups of styles with very new slimline suits,
00:42:39
which were a move away from what men had been wearing in the 40s, what their dads had been wearing for them.
00:42:44
So they were easy to wear.
00:42:45
They were relatively cheap to procure.
00:42:48
They could be made of quite a wide range of different textures and colours.
00:42:52
So there wasn't just the grey that had predominated in the 50s.
00:42:56
So although this was seen as a generation of the peacock male and casual clothing was huge, we can see that the influence of the suit had far from disappeared.
00:43:04
And we start to see suit jackets worn with more casual shirts and trousers, particularly into the 70s.
00:43:10
And this marks a really new way of interacting with the garment in a socially acceptable way as well.
00:43:16
So I think that emergence of the teenager really had had a lot of sway in the way the suit developed into casualness that was now being imbued in the suit.
00:43:25
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the 70s because moving into the 70s, you have those suits that are defined by those incredibly long and wide lapels and suits that really continue to hug the body.
00:43:36
Then you go into the 1980s, we start seeing a return to that boxier, more unstructured suit, this kind of direction was led by Georgia or Monty.
00:43:45
But honestly, I think the most exciting thing to happen is suits during these periods in the 1980s and my humble opinion are the Japanese designers.
00:43:54
So how did designers such as Kenzo both subvert and transform?
00:43:58
What was this traditional Euro American garment?
00:44:01
I'll go, I agree, those designers were phenomenal and it was one of my favorite parts of researching because I didn't know so much about them before I started the research for this book.
00:44:09
And it's amazing, especially when we consider that not too long before in the grand scheme of things, Japanese fashion and design was admired, but hugely appropriated by the West and by the 1970s and 80s,
00:44:21
Japanese designers themselves were integrated into the fabric of the New York and Paris fashion scene.
00:44:26
And yeah, Kenzo is key because he did that hugely successfully and he helped other northwest designers to infiltrate the market as well.
00:44:35
So they made a unique mark that was embraced because it had elements of Japanese culture, but also because it brought this new direction and new kind of vibrancy into fashion.
00:44:45
And my favorite Japanese suit in the book is actually not the one by Kenzo, the one by Mixer Hero Mapsuda and he's really fascinating because he actually makes constant reference to that earlier Western appropriation of Japanese style.
00:44:59
And the suit I chose shows elements that were really clearly taken from early time to a century leisure clothing such as things like a more foot jacket with its pleats, slanted pocket flaps that recall more than a century of equestrian clothing.
00:45:12
So at the same time, his work was highly contemporary, it related back to Armani's more unstructured style, it combined formality with comfort created this very low slim V down the front of the torso.
00:45:24
But it also did refer back to the past and I think that's one of the things that makes designers like Mapsuda so interesting.
00:45:31
He is he's never forgets that he never forgets that difficult history and he weaves it in to create something that's very contemporary and very inclusive.
00:45:39
He says, yeah, it really cool Japanese suits featured in your book and I have to say we started in 1666.
00:45:47
We've made it all the way up to the 1980s.
00:45:51
You actually end your book in 2000.
00:45:54
Why did you make that decision to end it in 2000?
00:45:57
Why not bring it up to what could be this present day?
00:46:00
Yeah, I could have done tonight could have carried on really I had to stop somewhere and true final example I've used the final example which is a suit from 1997 by the New Zealand design house Sanderson.
00:46:13
If you look at it next to the first 17th century suit that I show, it represents this massive change.
00:46:20
It's got a dairy pattern of a very brightly colored chinch, which is stereotypically feminine.
00:46:25
It's got provocative lettering inside the jacket, which you can't see, but it reads.
00:46:30
Yeah, and it says that last I found my sex machine, which is of course still not something that's conventional.
00:46:37
These things are more widely accepted playing with conventions is much more broadly done.
00:46:42
And I think this demonstrates the kind of gender fidelity that that we're seeing much more in the norm now as we go into 2020.
00:46:49
And it also demonstrates that although these things are changed and suit designers are playing with more unconventional ideas, the suit shape and construction has in essence remained the same for the last 100 years.
00:47:02
The suit that I show the 1997 suit looks very similar to an 1860 70 fax suit.
00:47:09
It's single-breasted.
00:47:10
It's got quite slim lapels.
00:47:12
It's got relatively slim trousers.
00:47:14
And I don't believe that the basic suit has changed much since this example in terms of the way it's cut expectations around the suit and the wearing of it are still I think quite traditional in many respects.
00:47:25
So you just need to listen to men talking about their clothes to understand this.
00:47:29
I do think changes are on the horizon, maybe in the future I'll get a chance to expand the volume and put in another chance.
00:47:35
We'll have to see how what it does, but yeah, I think I think 2000 was a good place to stop.
00:47:40
It is a nice nice neat place in the millennium.
00:47:43
And I encourage readers to think about what they've seen since then and put their own narrative in place as they come to the end and look at their own experiences of wearing suits, buying suits, seeing suits.
00:47:52
So hopefully it will allow people to do that.
00:47:54
But yeah, thank you so much for being here.
00:47:57
We are so grateful that you wrote this book and took the time to come on here and educate us about the evolution of the suit.
00:48:05
Well, thanks so much for having me.
00:48:07
It's been great to chat to you about this.
00:48:09
I should follow up by saying that I do understand April, why she ended in the year 2000 as fashion historians.
00:48:15
We generally like 10 to 20 years of hindsight to look back on history to give us a more rounded perspective.
00:48:21
And like she said, many of the suit styles from the 90s such as the slim fit are alive and well today, but there are some noted additions we can thank Tom Brown in particular for bringing the suit into the 21st century.
00:48:33
Not only has he presented the short sleeve short suits, he's also lately been showing suits with skirts from men.
00:48:42
And speaking of gender-bending fashions, while the more adventurous men might be starting to consider skirt suits, women have been wearing the pants suits of their male counterparts since at least the 1960s.
00:48:53
Last year, both the half-post and fast company interviewed me about the history of women and pantsuits.
00:48:58
The latter was actually tweeted by the pantsuit queen herself, Hillary Clinton, which was very cool and unexpected.
00:49:05
What I find so particularly interesting about pantsuits is that I think women have worn them for so long that they're now arguably kind of this gender-neutral garment.
00:49:14
So let's see if moving into the future the same will be said about skirts.
00:49:17
I hope it is.
00:49:18
And for any of you listeners that listen to the show all the time, you know what a hardcore proponent I am for the male skirt.
00:49:25
Oh yeah.
00:49:26
And it delights me in New York when it's summer and I see gentlemen wearing skirts.
00:49:30
But that does it for us today.
00:49:33
Dress listeners, may you consider the legacy of the suit next time you get dressed.
00:49:37
Dress will be back with season eight and all brand new episodes in February of next year.
00:49:47
But until then, remember we love hearing from you, so if you would like to write to us, you can do so at Hello@DressT history.com.
00:49:54
DressT history.com is also where of course you can register for our tours, our trips, our new class, anything else that we have up our finally tailored sleeves.
00:50:05
That includes April's twice-weekly in-person fashion history tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as our brand new dress-to-school-a-fashion live online course, the 1950s Golden Age Oak Couture,
00:50:16
which is now open for registration.
00:50:19
And we do have gift cards available for both April's tours and the class.
00:50:23
So just send us an email at Hello@DressT history.com.
00:50:26
And also send us an email if you want to get on the first to know lists for our New York City Day tours coming your way in April 2025, and our Paris Fashion History Tours coming your way in June.
00:50:37
Registration for both of these tours will open in January and we do expect them to sell out.
00:50:42
So send us an email to get on those lists.
00:50:44
Thank you as always for your continued support.
00:50:47
DressT will be coming back your way, for season eight and early February.
00:50:52
DressT the history of fashion as a production of dress media.
00:50:57
(upbeat music)
00:50:59
