page_title: Doublet (clothing)
section_title: Later 16th century
hierarchical_section_title: Doublet (clothing) / History / Later 16th century
caption_attribution_description: French; Doublet;
context_page_description: A doublet is a man's snug-fitting jacket that is shaped and fitted to the man's body which was worn in Spain and was spread to Western Europe from the late Middle Ages up to the mid-17th century. The doublet was hip length or waist length and worn over the shirt or drawers. Until the end of the 15th century, the doublet was usually worn under another layer of clothing such as a gown, mantle, overtunic or jerkin when in public.
  Originally it was a mere stitched and quilted lining, worn under a hauberk or cuirass to prevent bruising and chafing. Doublets were sometimes opened to the waistline in a deep V. The edges might be left free or laced across the shirt front. If there was space left it might be filled with a stomacher. By the 1520s, the edges of the doublet more frequently met at the center front. Then, like many other originally practical items in the history of men's wear, from the late 15th century onward it became elaborated enough to be seen on its own.
  Throughout the 300 years of its use, the doublet served the same purpose: to give fashionable shape and padding to the body, to support the hose by providing ties, and to provide warmth to the body.
context_section_description: Through the Tudor period, fashionable doublets remained close-fitting with baggy sleeves, and elaborate surface decoration such as pinks (patterns of small cuts in the fabric), slashes, embroidery, and applied braid.
  In the early Elizabethan period, doublets were padded over the belly with bombast in a "pouter pigeon" or "peascod" silhouette.  Sleeve attachments at the shoulder were disguised by decorative wings, tabs, or piccadills, and short skirt-like peplums or piccadills covered the waist of the hose or breeches.  Padding gradually fell out of fashion again, and the doublet became close-fitting with a deep V-waistline.
  More images:
  Edward VI in an elaborately trimmed and pinked, long-skirted late Tudor doublet under a crimson gown with hanging sleeves.
  Martin Frobisher in  a peascod-bellied doublet under a buff jerkin.
  Sir Philip Sidney, when governor of Flushing in the Low Countries, chose to be portrayed in his doublet, but still in a gorget, as if he were caught in the act of setting aside his armour to institute a civil government.
caption: Doublet, ca.1620, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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