suit

Vivienne Westwood 1941

Summary

2 piece suit in black and white window-pane checked wool twill; body of jacket with check cut straight/horizontal; sleeves and skirt cut on the diagonal; skirt with black velvet turn down collar and exposed circular pocket pouches; peplum; SB fastening with 4 black orb buttons; 2 separate skirts; one size 10 and one 12, one with original card swing tag; lined rayon acetate; woven labels.

Display Label

The typical matching two or three piece suit still worn by men today developed during the eighteenth century, and specifically from about 1800 when trousers replaced breeches. Women have also worn suits since the 1890s, and on many occasions have deliberately looked to this masculine pattern, as in this wartime suit in green wool worsted, retailed by Brenner Sports. Women's fashions in wartime often give a patriotic nod to masculinity or to military detailing. Such manifestations are usually influenced by men's uniforms and can include braiding and frogging, flapped pockets and broad belts, wide padded shoulders and waisted jackets, and even as in this case khaki-type colours. This suit was made at the very end of the Second World War, when fabric was very scarse and when governmental control of civilian clothing retricted the amount of material that could be used in any garment. The other images below show earlier and later suits, starting with a man's silk example of about 1770, then four men's suits of the 1960s and early 1970s when the "peacock male" was again in vogue, a stylish 1960s tie, a woman's fitted suit from the 1950s, and a strikingly similar Vivienne Westwood "retro" woman's suit of 1999.