Red coat

“ Rex answered his question. “People merely stare at one, and point one out, and make remarks about one; and one has to be absolutely certain that his coat fits. No one ever worries about the fit of a coat if it is on a pug-nosed man; they don’t notice it if his trousers bag at the knees, or if he wears a brilliant red necktie that matches his brilliant red nose.”
“True, beauty has its obligations,” mused the wonder-girl. ”

“ The overcoat for officers is a double-breasted sack overcoat of knee length made of forestry-green cloth. It has a turn-down notched collar with soft lapels, two horizontal side pockets with straight flaps, and shoulder straps similar to those on the jacket but slightly larger. On each of these shoulder straps is worn a Greek cross of red cloth or silk embroidery. The buttons of the overcoat are plain bone buttons of a color to match the coat. On each side of the collar one inch above the notch in the lapel the initials A. R. C. in plain bronze block letters are worn. ”

“ In concealing-cover, not the coat, but the head dress and face are seen. It is a reasonable subject of doubt whether on open ground, at a distance of six hundred or eight hundred yards, red, soiled by dust, dirt and drenching, does not mellow into a greyish-purple, as little calculated to make the man who wears it a mark as blue, black, or dark green. ”

“ You must not come without your coat; and also wear a mantle, the best that you have. For trousers always select cloth of a brown dye. It seems quite proper also to wear trousers of black fur, but not of any other sort of cloth, unless it be scarlet. Your coat should be of brown color or green or red, and all such clothes are good and proper. Your linen should be made of good linen stuff, but with little cloth used; your shirt should be short, and all your linen rather light. Your shirt should be cut somewhat shorter than your coat; for no man of taste can deck himself out in flax or hemp. ”

“ The coat of the Smooth or Short-coated variety, should be very close, thick and slightly brokenhaired. In the Rough variety the coat should be dense and flat, of medium length, not woolly, rather longer on the neck, thighs and tail. Colour and markings: orange, orange and tawny, and all shades of brindle, and red; the markings should be as follows:—White muzzle, white blaze up face, the white being shaded with black, also black shadings on the ears, white collar round neck, white chest, legs and tip of tail. The body may be white with patches of any of above colours. ”

“ The peasants are far better off, they have all appeared in sheepskin coats, the fur they wear inside, and the leather, which is usually stained deep orange or rust colour, is a very decorative exterior. The bourgeois women have brought out their former remains of splendour, and although they may have only felt or canvas shoes on their feet, and a shawl over their heads, some of them wear coats that one would turn round to look at in Bond Street. I headed my list of requirements with the request for a coat—as well as caviare, Trotsky, and a soldier of the Red Army whom I want to model. ”

“ The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed, their red glory all over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he had seen in the glass cases that first night must have gone the same way, long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world is run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat and scooped a little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. ”

“ A STRICTLY TAILORED COAT for a man or boy is made in very much the same way as a strictly tailored coat for women except that the effect is even more tailored. The best tailors in New York give a well-tailored and mannish look to a coat by the methods given below.
For this style of coat it is very important to know how to baste in the canvas, face the front of the coat and put in the lining before joining the shoulder seam. Not until this has been done should the collar be basted to the coat. These are the fine points of tailoring and should be followed closely in coat-making. ”

“ The eighteen-shilling chintz great-coats, so ostentatiously put forward by nefarious tradesmen as dressing-gowns, and which resemble pattern-cards of the vegetable kingdom, are unworthy the notice of all gentlemen—of course excepting those who are so by act of Parliament. Although it is generally imagined that the coat is the principal article of dress, we attach far greater importance to the trousers, the cut of which should, in the first place, be regulated by nature’s cut of the leg. ”

“ I note with pleasure that your Highness knows
The delicate art of building up a stock.
Here's a check pattern makes an elegant knot.
How does this waistcoat strike your Lordship's fancy,
Down which meander wreaths of blossoms?
The Duke.
Hideous!
The Tailor.
Will these, I wonder, leave your Highness cold?
Here's doeskin. Here a genuine Scottish tweed.
Bottle-green riding-coat with narrow cuffs;
Extremely gentlemanly. Here's a waistcoat:
Six-buttoned. Three left open. Very tasty.
Now, what about this blue frock-coat? We've rubbed
The newness off artistically. ”

“ No doubt Madame Fashion saw to it that the changes were rung sufficiently to make hay while the sun shone on extravagant tastes. The coat was held at the waist with a sash of silk tied in a bow with short ends. Towards the end of the reign, foreshadowing the Elizabethan jerkin or jacket, the custom grew more universal of the coat with sleeves and the high neck, the bases were cut shorter to show the full trunks, and the waistcoat was almost entirely done away with, the collar grew in proportion, and spread, like the tail of an angry turkey, in ruffle and folded pleat round the man’s neck. ”

“ I shall wear my best black and my white alpacka coat to keep off the dust and flies replied Mr Salteena.
I shall put some red ruge on my face said Ethel because I am very pale owing to the drains in this house. ”

“ Your winter coat must necessarily be very warm, lined with fur and very thick, with a very high fur collar, which when raised—and it must always be raised—must entirely cover the ears; a fur toque is the most practical head-dress, with one’s hair done low on the forehead, as the cold is so intense that it seems to wish to penetrate like a chisel just where the nose begins, between the eyes. ”

“ The loveliest coat in the world—"fumée de Londres," the salesman had called it, and in fact, it was the colour of the purple-grey smoke that ascends in solid spirals from factory chimneys. There were stripes too of silvery grey chenil which made a play-ground for lights and shadows. In shape it was like an old print of a coachman driving a four-in-hand, long with a flapping cape, and the lining was the colour of the sky when the sun has set. ”

“ The plain black coat fitting to perfection, but light and perfectly easy, the snowy white waistcoat, the shirt, of extraordinary fineness, as pure as driven snow, the plain wristband turned back over the cuff, the beautifully-made gloves and boots, and withal that air of ease and grace which, if not a part of the dress, except metaphorically, gives value to the whole, at once distinguished that young man from all the rest, and pointed him out as one of the marked in the capital of nations. ”

“ We do not appreciate the jacket as we ought, or rather we do not remember the good service it did us at Eton and Harrow—when the limbs were free and supple, and when their full activity was called into constant play, who would have thought of a coat? It was only when we began to fancy ourselves men, and to think that our claims to virility lay in the skirts of our coats, that we discarded the jacket. ”

“ No coatee nor jacket can be warm enough for the British service, exposed as the men are to all varieties of climate; and infinitely more to cold and wet than to sunshine. In India, and in some of the colonies, a lighter kind of clothing may be indeed necessary; but for the common use of the army, a coat is wanted that shall be a protection against wet and cold, and yet not inconvenient to the wearer—making him comfortable, in fact, while it allows him free use of all his limbs and muscles. ”

“ Piqué and henrietta could also be used for Summer baby coats. The lower and front edges may be hemmed by hand or held in place by machine stitching on the outside. The same finish is carried out at the neck and wrist.
CAPS—For Winter the cap matches the coat in material and trimming, or if you prefer you can use lingerie caps over a padded silk lining of white, pale pink or pale blue China Ill. 126. Applying a Band silk. The cap-strings are always separate and are made of hemstitched lawn, batiste or handkerchief linen. They are pinned on with baby pins and changed every day. ”

“ The vest is a figured worsted piece of goods, of lilac colour, about half-worn. The coat is a black cloth frock, or surtout, but little worn, no velvet upon it, lined inside of the skirts with black silk or serge, the sleeve lining twilled linen. Inside of [Pg 186] the left sleeve is a mark of the merchant, which is one cipher—nothing more. From the looks, I should have taken the coat to have cost twenty dollars. The pantaloons are rather of a blue colour, striped casinet, and have never been worn much. ”

“ From one of the number out came a long driving coat, snowy white, light of texture, an ideal garment for a warm yet dusty summer’s day, which being fastened down the side by huge pearl buttons, displayed a degree of smartness nothing short of uncanny in an untrimmed garment. ”

“ A line of nine ruffianly-looking scarecrows, under review by Old Colonial, head-master of the ceremonies. Our shirts are clean, though elaborately embroidered in many colours. Our trousers ditto. Our boots, whether high ankle-jacks, or lace-ups and leggings, are black, if not polished. Each man wears a coat. Rather ragged, rather ancient are these coats, originally of very varied kinds. But the etiquette of the bush does not demand much in coats. So long as your shirt is clean and whole, your coat may be a little off colour, so to put it. People are not so particular about the coat. ”

“ The word coat, meaning a garment for men for covering the upper part of the body, has been in use for centuries; but of very changeable and confusing usage, for it also constantly meant petticoat. The garment itself was a puzzle, for many years; most bewildering of all the attire which was worn by the first colonists was the elusive, coatlike over-garment called in shipping-lists, tailors’ orders, household inventories, and other legal and domestic records a doublet, a jerkin, a jacket, a cassock, a paltock, a coat, a horseman’s coat, an upper-coat, and a buff-coat. ”

“ He says that it is always put on over all the others. In the case of the ordinary civilian we have the waistcoat, which was originally an outer garment. Then comes the frock-coat or surtout, which at the beginning of the nineteenth century was [149] an overcoat, and over this again in cold weather the modern ulster or top-coat is put.
No consideration of servants’ dress would be complete without an allusion to the cap and apron of the house- or parlour-maid. To begin with, we see in these a survival of the special dresses which were once adopted by particular trades. ”

“ A pouch or wallet depended from the belt, and a sheath containing two daggers, an anelace, and a misericorde. The pouch was a very rich affair, often of stamped gilded leather or sewn velvet—ornamented, in fact, according to the purse of the wearer. In winter such a man as he of the cotehardie would wear an overcoat with an attached hood. This coat was made in various forms: one form with wide sleeves the same width all the way down, under which were slits in the coat to enable the wearer to place his hands inside, as in the modern Raglan [Pg 125] coat-pocket. ”

“ There is also the cutaway suit for morning wear. This is worn mostly by elderly and heavily built men. It consists of a cutaway body-coat four buttons, waistcoat single-breasted, and trousers. These three pieces are always of the same material and pattern. The same things are worn with this as with the sack body-coat.
Heavy cloths for winter and light weights for summer wear.
The sack body-coat becomes all men, tall or short, thin or stout, old or young.
Fancy serge waistcoats, also fine linen waistcoats, and sashes in summer, may be worn with the sack body-coat. ”

“ A plain, dark, close-buttoned coat, whether of cloth or velvet, fastened with a single row of diamond or steel buttons in front, would be far more effective, as an object of good taste, than if its seams were all covered with gold lace.
As for the colour of coats, we do not intend to speak of this till we come to the subject of military costume. We leave it awhile to the taste of the nation,—colours have always served as marks of national differences. We beg leave to subjoin a few words in behalf of a poor little garment that has hardly any grown-up friends to say any thing for it ”

“ There's something sensible about a real, unadulterated top-coat; and there's a style in the way in which they've let down the skirts, and put on the velvet collar and cuffs regardless of expense, that really quite goes to one's heart. Now I daresay the man that built that," he said, more particularly addressing the owner of the coat, "condescends to live in a village, and waste his sweetness on the desert air, while a noble field might be found for his talent in a University town. That coat will make quite a sensation in Oxford. Won't it, Charley?" ”

“ A superfine scarlet lapelled coat, with gilt dollar-sized buttons; a profuse lace frill frothing over the top of his white satin, jasmin-sprigged waistcoat; small-clothes of the glossiest black satin, with Bristol diamond buckles; silk stockings, tinged with Scott's liquid-dye blue, and decorated with Devonshire clocks; long ruffles, falling over hands once so worn with rude labour ”