Practically perfect

From modest origins, the gilet has evolved into a sporting wardrobe staple, combining function and fashion to become a status symbol in its own right

- EVE JONES

I WONDER how many of you reading this are wearing a gilet? A fair few, I’ll wager. From modest, practical origins in the 15th century it has become quite the status symbol, subtly, or not so subtly, announcing one’s social and professional persuasions with its form, fabric and the likely or unlikely places it appears. Indeed, this lightweight garment has been weighed down by shifting nuances for centuries, undergoing various transformations on its journey from peasant to pheasant.

As early as the 1500s, the gilet appeared as the practical clothing of European peasants, offering warmth and sleeveless manoeuvrability while working the fields. Appropriated by 16th-century monarch Henry VIII in the form of a jerkin and, as a far more elaborate affair, padded and worn over a doublet, it became de rigueur among the aristocracy over the following century. As men turned to slimmer waistcoats, women adopted the garment wearing a silk gilet over dress bodices in the 18th century. But by the 20th century these delicacies had subsided, too, and the gilet was once again revived as functional attire; lined in wool, it found itself in the trenches along with the infantrymen of World War I. A quiet spell followed in the mainstream gilet fashion stakes, although a useful modification was being adopted by landed gentry and their estate workers, who required a garment that offered warmth and freedom of movement while hunting, shooting or fishing.