History
In the 17th century, goods began flowing into Europe from the Americas, bringing in spices, tobacco, coffee, and silks. It became fashionable to be depicted in one's portrait wearing a silk robe de chambre, or dressing gown. One of the earliest mentions of this garment comes from Samuel Pepys, who desired to be depicted in his portrait in a silk gown but could not afford one, and so rented one:
"Thence home and eat one mouthful, and so to Hale's and there sat until almost quite dark upon working my gowne, which I hired to be drawn (in) it—an Indian gown, and I do see all the reason to expect a most excellent picture of it." —Diary, 30 March 1666
The short smoking jacket soon evolved from these silk garments. When the Crimean War during the 1850s popularised Turkish tobacco in England, smoking gained in popularity. After dinner, a gentleman might put on a smoking jacket and retreat to a den or smoking room. The jacket was intended to absorb the smoke from his cigar or pipe and protect his clothing from falling ash.
The smoking jacket remained a popular accessory into the 20th century. An editorial in the Washington Post in 1902 gave the opinion that the smoking jacket was "synonymous with comfort", while a Pennsylvania newspaper opined in 1908 that it would be "putting it mildly to say that a new House Coat or Smoking Jacket will give any man reason for elation".
In the 1950s, famous wearers included Cary Grant, Fred Astaire (who was buried in a smoking jacket), Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin.
Read more about this topic: Smoking Jacket
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)