I understand that modern outer layers are more functional. A leather jacket, for example, can be dressed up or down so as to be worn in a variety of situations. It is also better at keeping you warm.
However, I think capes/cloaks are more aesthetically pleasing garments. It also feels good to have the fabric flowing around you as you walk. But what do you think?
The actual reason that we don’t is pretty much because of the invention of sewing machines. Once sewing machines were widespread, making coats became sooo much cheaper than they had been. Coats need a lot of tightly made seams which took time and so made coats very expensive. With sewing machines, making these seams was vastly quicker and more reliable.
Coats win over cloaks in so many ways because you can do things with your arms without exposing them or your torso to the rain and cold: impossible with a cloak.
Capes were the short versions - and intended to cover the shoulder and back without seams that might let the rain in, but with the new machine made seams, they were not needed either.
The really big change was when it became affordable to outfit armies with coats instead of cloaks or capes. At that point all the caché and prestige that was associated with military rank disappeared from cloaks and capes and they were suddenly neither useful not fashionable.
Nowadays, of course, they are no longer what your unfashionable dad would have worn: they are quite old enough to have regained a certain style.
The other big reason is that the world is cleaner. Capes and cloaks also protect the whole body from mud/dust and can be easily removed. Riding a horse or walking on dirt roads is a lot dirtier than riding in cars or walking on a sidewalk
The original type of coat that would have been worn when riding was the Great Coat - which did cover the whole body, down to the ankles (and included the front of the body much better than a cloak). Those would have been worn by military officers, particularly.
Those were fine for riding, but then if you were off your horse and end up in the newly developed trench warfare - starting from around the US civil war onwards - you ended up wading through mud which got caked to the coat. So then they started cutting the coats shorter and they became Trench Coats.
you ended up wading through mud
Horse shit. In cities, you waded through horse shit.
As someone who has done extensive reenactment in period dress, sometimes in towns dedicated to realism that banned cars and relied on horses for travel, you wouldn’t believe how terrible even a dozen carriages and a few dozen private horses can be to your skirts/trousers and shoes. Especially when it rains.
People sometimes make light of women in the past who changed their outer clothes two or three times a day, but if you were in town, your attire would be absolutely foul after a few hours in the same outer skirt. A long cloak helped immensely to keep your skirts or trousers from soaking up horse sewage.
Once cars took over, that stopped being a problem, cloaks weren’t as desirable as they obscured fashion, and coats became shorter and more for protection from the weather than from horse shit.
There was a bit of military influence, but that was more about fashion than functional influence.
e: clarification
Vogue tells a different history of the trench coat, claiming its origins are actually raincoats for active well-to-do British gentlemen:
https://www.vogue.fr/fashion/article/vogue-encyclopaedia-the-history-of-the-trench-coat
I know someone who wears a cloak cape. They explained this to me how practical it was back 300 years ago that you could wear your nightly blanket.
I asked them if that was a situation they ran into often while living in Brooklyn. Having to bed down for the night with your cloak.
100% of the cloaks and capes I’ve seen IRL have been as part of either someone’s weird cosplay or some neckbeard/weeb shit. I think that, a bit like the fedora, they’re just sorta ruined now due to the people who wear them.
They’ve just morphed. A poncho is basically a cloak that doesn’t open. A long dress coat is basically a cloak with formal buttons.
A long dress coat is basically a cloak with formal buttons.
Also sleeves, which are the main difference anyway
I wear a Fedora sometimes - AC can get cold and my hair isn’t as thick as it used to be… it just seems easier than converting to Judaism to be able to wear a Yamaka:-P.
Surely you know there are other options than just “fedora” or “yarmulke.”
AC can get cold and my hair isn’t as thick as it used to be… it just seems easier than converting to Judaism to be able to wear a Yamaka:-P.
I pity Americans who don’t just wear a touque (or as you might call it, a beanie). Honestly it’s the perfect hat for cold weather. Here in Canada, basically everyone wears one for the half of the year where it’s cold enough to warrant a hat. Some people are fancy and wear an Ushanka hat or a Nordic hat in the winter, but 99% just wear a touque.
Indeed I wear a beanie the whole winter, whenever I can get away with it.:-D But in 100 degree weather, it wouldn’t work quite as well…:-P.
Wear a beret.
If necessary, affect a French accent.
Or throw people off by affecting a Texas Twang or Southern Drawl.
Wear a beret, speak in a low monotone voice, go bald, grow a big walrus-like moustache.
Howdy ya’all, faire bon accueil, I hope you are living in high cotton today! :-P
Can’t really pull off a fedora (or similar) without a suit that matches, otherwise, yeah, you just look like a neckbeard or maybe a Michael Jackson cosplayer. If you aren’t dressing in formal attire, consider a baseball cap, beanie, hood, cabbie hat, or even a stetson if it’s up your alley.
No googling or anything, huh? Just throwing “yamaka” out there and hoping it was right?
The issue is it has to fit the overall outfit. A fedora can still look really good if you have a well tailored suit to match it, while most of the things that look good with a cloak are, frankly, uncomfortable to wear everyday compared to modern clothing. This is why it’s essentially only done for cosplay and larping nowadays, looking like that is fun every now and then but not so fun that you’d want to go about daily life dressed that way.
It’s because of cars and trains
Horses and to a lesser extent bikes let you just throw the cape out behind you as you ride, but if you’re riding in a chair, you have to bunch it up as you’re getting in so you don’t accidentally auto-asphyxiate yourself with the titanic cheeks you inherited from yo mama
I feel like capes went out of style around the industrial revolution for the very reasons outlined in The Incredibles by Edna as to why she doesn’t design costumes with capes.
Definitely wouldn’t want my cape to get caught in a car or train door.
