Coming soon: Fifty Shades Of Waistcoat
10 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THIS YEAR’S BIG TREND
1 The surge in popularity of the waistcoat following the recent success of the england World Cup team, led by manager Gareth Southgate, has been remarkable. After Muhammad and Gareth, ‘Waistcoat’ is currently the third most popular name for a newborn baby boy, while ‘Waistcoata’ is the fourth most popular name for a newborn baby girl.
2 On SATURDAY, car manufacturer renault unveiled its new ‘ renault Waistcoat’, a midrange family saloon with outsize buttons on its bonnet.
3 JACOB REESMOGG’S children all wear waistcoats. On Sundays, they relax in doublebreasted waistcoats.
4 When it was first invented, the waistcoat was always worn with its buttons at the back. In those pioneering days, gentlemen would be obliged to ask their wives or lady friends: ‘ Can you do me up at the back?’ It was a full quartercentury before the absentminded Lord Ponsonby had his ‘eureka!’ moment. having placed his waistcoat on back to front, he suddenly realised that he could now do the buttons up for himself. before the year was out, every waistcoat wearer in the country had followed suit.
It took another decade, however, before gentlemen realised that they could do and undo their own fly-buttons if they applied the same styling to their trousers, which had, up to that point, always been worn ‘buttons over bottom’.
5 ORIGINALLY called ‘ The Waste-Coat’, the garment is defined in dr Johnson’s dictionary as ‘a portable wastebin for odds and ends accrued during the course of a busy day’.
In his own ‘ waste-coat’ , dr Johnson was reputed to keep sweet wrappers, beer mats, leaky snuffboxes and definitions for which he had been unable to find words. It was only after the invention of the litter bin in the late 18th century that the waste-coat was renamed the waistcoat, and became primarily decorative.
6 GARETH SOUTHGATE wears the bottom button of his waistcoat undone on special occasions. This is an old sartorial rule, said to indicate that the waist-coat-wearer in question is a man of the world. Less wellknown are signals sent out by other buttons remaining undone. The following guide was compiled by the Worldwide Waistcoat Wearers Association (WWWA).
Middle button undone: I am overweight.
Middle two buttons undone: I am very overweight.
All buttons undone: I am morbidly obese.
each button inserted into a hole one below where it should be: I still felt a little tipsy when I got dressed this morning.
7 GARETH SOUTHGATE wears a threepiece set of pyjamas to bed. On particularly chilly days, he can sometimes be spotted on the football pitch wearing an under-waist-coat, for added warmth.
8 AS PART of her campaign to reduce global warming, designer Vivienne Westwood has heroically refused to sell a single item from her new Gold Waistcoat Collection t to icebergs.
9 TO CASH in on this year’s trend, there are at least three major feature films with strong waistcoat themes in production. Quentin Tarantino’s WayzeKote is about fo four men in different coloured waistcoats who gather in a room to torture and then murder each other, leaving their waistcoats victorious.
E.L. James’s Fifty Shades Of Waistcoat features a highpowered older waistcoat meeting an attractive younger waistcoat, then gradually persuading her to let him drape her over a coathanger.
Finally, the period drama Waists And Coats, based on a Jane Austen short story, features a spectacular ballroom scene in which a young pink brocade waistcoat, worn by actress Lily James, finally gets together with an older brown velvet waistcoat, worn by actor dominic West. ‘I fancy that together they shall give birth to waistcoats aplenty, My Lord Farnsbury,’ says Lily as their garments embrace by the light of the moon.
10 NETWORK RAIL is currently issuing fashion warnings to all customers at sevenminute intervals.
‘In the current climate, it is advisable to wear a waistcoat. Customers are advised to keep a waistcoat about their person at all times. If you see anyone acting suspiciously without a waistcoat, please report them to a member of staff. Watch it. Warn it. Waistcoat it.’