A MAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. (1660-1685)
This is the change which came over men’s dress on or about October, 1666. It is the new-fashioned vest or body-coat introduced to the notice of Charles by John Evelyn.
I am going to leave the change in dress during this reign to the next chapter, in which you will read how it struck Mr. Pepys. This change separates the old world of dress from the new; it is the advent of frocked coats, the ancestor of our frock-coat. It finishes completely the series of evolutions beginning with the old tunic, running through the gown stages to the doublet of Elizabethan times, lives in the half coat, half doublet of Charles I., and ends in the absurd little jackets of Charles II., who, sartorially, steps from the end of the Middle Ages into the New Ages, closes the door on a wardrobe of brilliant eccentricity, and opens a cupboard containing our first frock-coat.
PEPYS AND CLOTHES
It is not really necessary for me to remind the reader that one of the best companions in the world, Samuel Pepys, was the son of a tailor. Possibly—I say possibly because the argument is really absurd—he may have inherited his great interest in clothes from his father. You see where the argument leads in the end: that all men to take an interest in clothes must be born tailors’ sons. This is no more true of Adam, who certainly did interest himself, than it is of myself.
Pepys was educated at St. Paul’s School, went to Trinity College, Cambridge, got drunk there, and took a scholarship. He married when he was twenty-two a girl of fifteen, the daughter of a Huguenot. He was born in 1633, three years after the birth of Charles II., of outrageous but delightful memory, and he commenced his Diary in 1660, the year in which Charles entered London, ending it in 1669, owing to his increasing weakness of sight. He was made Secretary to the Admiralty in 1672, in 1673 he became a member of Parliament, was sent to the Tower as a Papist in 1679, and released in 1680. In 1684 he became President of the Royal Society, and he died in 1703, and is buried in St. Olave’s, Crutched Friars.
Pepys mentions, in 1660, his coat with long skirts, fur cap, and buckles on his shoes. The coat was, doubtless, an old-fashioned Cromwellian coat with no waist.
Later he goes to see Mr. Calthrop, and wears his white suit with silver lace, having left off his great skirt-coat. He leaves Mr. Calthrop to lay up his money and change his shoes and stockings.