Prince Charlie jacket
formal coatee worn with Scottish highland dress for black tie occasions
The Prince Charlie jacket is a formal black-tie jacket for Highland dress that was initially listed in tailor catalogs of the early 1920s as a coatee. Over the next couple of decades it became called a Prince Charlie (PC). When introduced, it was marketed as an alternative to the regulation doublet and was to be worn with a black or white bow tie, else white lace jabot, as well as a tartan or red waistcoat (vest). Today the waistcoat is usually made of the same material as the coat. It is a formal evening jacket and not suitable to be worn for day dress with a long tie.
It is a short-cut jacket with short tails in the back. Embellished with scallop cuffs and silver sleeve buttons, as well as silver buttons in the double-breast style on the front, the back tails also have scallop flaps and silver buttons.
The jacket is named for Prince Charles Edward Stuart. There is a common belief the Prince Charlie was inspired by a tartan coat worn by its name sake, though there is little evidence to support this. Tailors in the early 20th century used the name Prince Charlie as a marketing tactic.
The public source identifies “Prince Charlie jacket” as formal coatee worn with Scottish highland dress for black tie occasions. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Prince, Charlie and jacket.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prince Charlie jacket” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.