History
The waist-length style of jacket first appeared in the 1790s when George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer removed the tails from his tailcoat. Spencer, it was thought, singed the tails of his tailcoat while standing beside a fire and then cut off the ends, unwittingly starting a new fashion. Other stories say Spencer—frustrated by his tails catching on brambles—tore the tails off his coat when hunting one day. It was adopted as part of mess dress, the military formal eveningwear equivalent for the civilian white tie. In 1820, Eton College adopted it for underclassmen uniforms. Civilians first adopted a white mess jacket in 1933 to wear in the hot and tropical weather of Palm Beach.
The mess jacket soon fell out of fashion for two main reasons. One is that the jacket only worked well with an athletic and slim fit. The other reason is that the mess jacket had gone on to be worn by bellhops and waiters, leading the fashion conscious of the era to abandon the garment. Today, the jacket continues to be used as part of military mess dress and in service industries.
Read more about this topic: Mess Jacket (civil)
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