Evening Wear Ensemble

[Nathan]

Very interesting. It looks like mine except rigid at the back of the collar to keep it standing. Would it fold down and lay flat if you wanted another look or it it designed to stay standing?

[Troglodyte]

It's the collar arrangement that makes the doublet interesting - it falls open naturally, but resists being laid flat. I have forced it flat, like the Balmoral style, but the inner seams are then on show and the effect is far from acceptable.

All the other Kenmore doublets I have seen button right up to the throat, with a bit of a gap at the front of the collar to allow the jabot to worn in the usual way - rather like the collar on a Montrose doublet.

This one seem to be some where between the usual Kenmore and the Balmoral, like yours. Perhaps the open throat style of mine was to make it a bit more ralaxed, or to make an alternative to a lace jabot a possibility. I have tried it with an equestrian-style stock (like the sort of thing dressage eventers wear with a stick-pin) and that works as well as a jabot, as the conventionally-tied stock has a degree of bulk in its knot, which sits neatly in the collar opening.




This image is the nearest to mine as an illustrated example I have found - from an early 1960s (possibly 1950s) catalogue by R. W. Forsyth, and they identify it as a 'Morar' and give the 'Montrose' as either single- or double-breasted versions of a doublet without 'tashes'.

My guess is that different makers had their own interpretations of the theme, and named it according to their own fancy in order to maintain the distinction. I think mine, being made by Campbells of Beauley, was an individually-commissioned item, possibly copied from an image - I have known them to do that for other customers, when a photo from the Edwardian period has shown the style to copy.