Who Was Prince Charlie Anyway?

[Nanook]

The Prince Charlie is a very similar cut to the type of mess jackets worn by the military and is probably a "civilianised" version.

So my suggestion (again our 1921 sample is indeed in Archer green as confirmed when set alongside a Highland Regiments Nr1).

Welcome back. It's good to see your erudition on the board again.

Lets see how the chieftains respond.

Where once a plethora of small shops did bespoke work, or provided made to measure jackets and waistcoats

A pair of bespoke trousers from a (if the "the") premiere tailor in the U.S. cost in the mid 1950s around $100 USD (that was more than a month's rent for a middle class flat in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles). Suits and jackets, of course, were priced higher. The price of a jacket or suit from the best of Saville Row or any of the top British tailors was, of course, a bit lower but earnings in the U.K. were also lower than the United States.

Already then things were in decline. The Roman style (Brioni and co) took the best of Saville Row and added industrial production and clever use of machines to make suits to rival the best of London at a lower price point and with a bit more flair. New machine in Germany and Italy took to producing textiles of high quality at a low price.

By the 1960s-- if not partially already in the 1950s-- the changing consumption patterns matched with industrial methods lead to a redefinition of men's clothing and with it extreme rationalization and fusing: "glue". It allowed for men's clothing to be more "fashionable" and inexpensive.

I know of NO maker of highland garb today that does not use machines and fusing for their jackets. A traditionally made jacket (tailored with hand stitched floating canvas and built up on the "old tradition") would cost maybe 2500 GBP (still using some modern methods) versus the 150-350 GBP class of most jackets (including those sold by first league shops such as Kinloch Anderson, Dege & Skinner, Haggarts of Aberfeldy, Campbell in Beauly etc).

Few of the afficiandos of highland garb here, I suspect, with all respects to workmanship and quality would be prepared to spend this kind of money.

Are todays glued jackets that much worse than those of old? Not really. Fusing materials have improved significantly over the past years and now holds up better to cleaning solvents than the wool to abrasion--- in other words, before the jacket starts to loose shape its already worn down. In the lower ranks many tailors would work fast and sloppy to try to make a living wage (working on a piece-meal basis). Today its done off-shore within multinational textile networks feeding into large multinational multi-market clothing companies. Quality control is higher.