Late 19th century

Man's Fancy Dress Ensemble in Eighteenth-Century Style: Coat, Breeches, and Waistcoat

At fancy dress balls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, well-to-do men and women donned costumes that were exotic, inventive, or historical. Eighteenth-century fashions were especially popular since they flattered women and let men revive their abandoned sumptuousness. This costume, worn with a powdered wig and silk stockings by a member of a famous Main Line Philadelphia family, is embellished with gold trim and glass buttons that set off the satin's intense magenta, a color made possible with the development of synthetic dyes in the 1860s.