Talk:Tailcoat

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I really don't know why "morning coat" now resolves to "tailcoat".

Tailcoats are NOT synonymous with morning dress at all. In fact tailcoats are/were worn with equestrian dress, evening dress, morning dress, clergymen's dress, court dress, and livery (servant's uniforms). There are therefore at least SIX different subcategories where tailcoats belong. It is EXTREMELY misleading to imply that tailcoats are restricted in their use to morning dress. Nor would I advocate merging all six categories into the tailcoat article: that would be chaos.

The real problem arises from the white tie article. There, every time I edit the term "tailcoat" (as in "a tailcoat is worn with white tie") to "dress coat", somebody edits it back. So I let it stand as "tailcoat" but with a link leading to this article on tailcoats explaining that there are historically many different types of tailcoats, and that to differentiate between them, the term "dress coat" is crucial. Now there is the implication that tailcoats are not part of evening dress at all but part of morning dress alone.

"Morning coat" used to have a separate entry. This should have been retained alongside the "morning dress" article. The reason is that morning coats were not historically always worn with morning dress. In the past other coats were worn as morning dress. Also there are historical types of morning coats, no longer worn with modern morning dress. Having a specific morning coat article allows focused discussion of the morning coat eg cut, make-up including how to technically go about cutting and tailoring one. These things do not belong in the morning dress article.

SATOR —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sator (talk • contribs) 22:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see I was the one who changed the link back to 'tailcoat', but I would like to point out that the article contained more than the just the text: the place to which the link pointed. At that time, 'dress coat' resolved to a ghastly 'disambiguation' page (itself a dire word), which was no help at all. I agree that dress coat is a more precise term, but remember that the encyclopaedia should inform the uninformed; the last text, describing a "tailcoat ... horizontally cut away" is more informative to the reader than "dress coat", since we would then need to explain that a dress coat has tails, and so on. Since you admit that a dress coat is a tailcoat, this is not inaccurate either.

Further, the fact that 'morning dress' resolves to 'tailcoat' indicates that a morning dress is a tailcoat, not the reverse, as you seem to imply. In fact, it was you yourself who made the section in this article on morning dress (see your first edit). Since 'dress coat' links here just as much as 'morning coat', there is no implication, as you say, that a tailcoat is part of morning dress alone, as both are treated equally (same redirects, same level of section, &c.). Looking back at the paragraph I added in the lead, I felt that I was being co-operative. We are clearly told about both dress coats and morning coats and the differences, while allowing for other (much less common) uses of the term as well.

"Morning coats were not historically always worn with morning dress" is all well and good, but why that precludes treatment of the morning coat/morning dress distinction in the same format you yourself started the dress coat/white tie distinction is unclear. I think the structure as it is makes sense for the content as it is now, and we cannot be expected to rearrange the articles based on (unannounced) future plans. When we have more detail than can fit here, the obvious thing to do is fork the detail off into another article. The tailcoat article needs the two paragraphs it has to properly summarise the coat, and there is no other content at the moment on Wikipedia to justify another article.

Overall, I apologise if I have offended you; all my edits have been trying to add to and work with, not against, yours. So, my understanding of the summary of action to be taken is:

• 'Tailcoat' vs. 'dress coat' in white tie — you decide; it seems adequately explained to me.
• Should 'morning coat' redirect here? The summary here is good as it is (no need to prune), so unless more content is added, the only text on the new page would be useless duplication. At the moment, it seems to me the current situation makes sense.

—Kan8eDie (talk) 23:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't there used to be a reference to what is currently known as the morning coat being known as a Newmarket coat, when the frock coat was known as a morning coat? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.33.12.163 (talk) 13:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There should be a reference somewhere to the particular development (certainly in the UK, possibly elsewhere) - I think around the turn of the 20th century - whereby a section of men who previously wore a black silk hat, morning coat and striped trousers replaced the hat with a black bowler and the coat with a short black coat (cut much as the coat of a lounge suit).

(The silk hat would always be wrong with the short coat, and the bowler with the morning coat.)

This became something of a uniform for professional and upper clerical men, started dying out after WW2 (I think) but persisted as an eccentricity into the 1980s. (I remember an accountant (born c1920) in the City of London around 1980 who dressed like this.)

Iconic TV characters wearing this uniform include Captain Mainwaring (Dad's Army) and Horace Rumpole (Rumpole of the Bailey).

(Rumpole's standard get-up substituted a battered Homburg for a bowler, though in at least one episode he tries a bowler (returning to the Homburg by the end).)

Skeptic12 (talk) 18:58, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Skeptic12: Please see: black lounge suit. Chicbyaccident (talk) 19:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By this, I mean a suit made out of a single cloth, but cut in the form of a morning coat and striped trousers.

I believe that this style had its heyday in the later 19th century, was self-consciously raffish and tended to be made out of garishly patterned material.

I cannot find an example online - references to "morning coat suit" are incorrectly to the normal morning coat and striped trousers combination. But I do remember seeing an example years ago in C Willett Cunnington's Handbook of English Costume, either the 19th or the 20th century volume (no ebook version in Google Books, that I can see).

Skeptic12 (talk) 19:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nowadays, only a white waistcoat is acceptable as part of a tradition tailcoat ensemble. It appears this wasn’t the case always, as can be seen in one of the illustrations in this very article, or in films from the early 20th century. Can anyone with knowledge of the background please add to the article? Thensellek (talk) 04:46, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

At least in Finland, white tie (frakki) with a black waistcoat is still worn for academic occasions before 6 p.m (doctoral promotions, formal lunches etc.). Maybe it was historically an alternative to morning dress (called šaketti in Finnish) so you could wear the same attire whole day and just quickly change your waistcoat before attending a dinner party or an opera in the evening. JJohannes (talk) 19:21, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]