Wearing Waistcoats

Finding waistcoats, choosing a fit, and wearing them.

There are a few varieties of waistcoat and vest you might be interested in wearing — a typical modern waistcoat is ordinarily assumed to be part of men’s formalwear, with two front sections that button at the centre or to one side of the abdomen, and a back section. For wear with a suit, you might expect the vest to be made of wool, tweed, or linen, either entirely or in weave blends, although cheaper waistcoats might be made of polyester and/or viscose with elastane, especially if you’re looking at stretch-fit pieces.

I’m going to be using “waistcoat” and “vest” relatively loosely throughout this piece— “vest” in US English typically refers to any sleeveless garment worn overtop of a shirt or other undergarment, and is often used interchangeably with the word “waistcoat”. I personally would distinguish between a waistcoat and a vest by saying that a waistcoat fastens (or appears to fasten) at the front or side of the garment, meaning that it can be worn open, or is taken off by opening its front and then easing it from the shoulders, whereas a vest does not have any sort of fastening at its front or side, and is put on or removed by pulling it over the head.

Waistcoats typically have a bit more structure and shape than vests because of this fastening in the front, and where I would expect a vest to be made of the same fabric all over, and for it to be a specific selling point of the vest if its front is different to its back, it’s a lot more typical for the more structured waistcoat to have a contrasting backpiece. Many modern waistcoats have a silk or silk-satin back compared to the linen or wool to the two front pieces, and patterned or embroidered waistcoats especially often have a plain silk backing to contrast the more embellished front.

With that said, there’s unending varieties to waistcoats and vests that will achieve a similar style and silhouette — many modern men’s waistcoats intended for wear with suits will go from the shoulder to the middle of the hip, with the waist of the trousers hidden underneath the hem of the vest.

An 18th-century European waistcoat might have been worn to the upper and mid thigh — trousers were worn quite tight to the leg and the waistcoat might be worn open or would be buttoned to the mid-section with the tails open to allow for more movement, especially when worn underneath a jacket of slightly more length.

Here’s another 18th-century waistcoat, this one Italian, without the jacket:

And alternatively, there are much shorter waistcoats — in the 19th century, for example, many vests were worn with the hem resting at the waist to exaggerate and draw attention to a man’s hourglass figure, and some men would wear corsets to draw in their waist and create more of a contrast between their waist and hip.

You’ll still find this with a lot of costume tuxedo waistcoats, where the open breast plunges right down and the hem is quite high, so it changes the apparent length of your torso and gives you an appearance of a high waist, especially when it contrasts with a longer tuxedo jacket.

And all of that isn’t going into other forms of vests and waistcoats, such as the highly cropped waistcoat that basically ends at the base of the your breast — I struggled to find a reference picture for these ones, basically imagine an 80s crop top as a waistcoat. I am certain that this sort of garment was a staple of the 00s Disney fashion for young girls; waistcoats that have long tails but still no sleeves; sweatervests, and so on.

Standard Formalwear Waistcoats

You might want to wear the standard staple waistcoat that comes with a lot of men’s formalwear — in this case, many high street stores will be able to provide what you need, often in a variety of patterns, weights, and with some diversity to their style and tailoring.

In the UK, Next have a pretty wide formal range marketed to men — they have a huge variety of waistcoats online and in-store. We bought my partner’s suit from there, and although we didn’t get them a waistcoat, they do have a lot of options available!

If you’re lucky enough to live in Ireland, I cannot recommend enough Q23 Menswear off Eyre Square in Galway City, especially if you’re able to go and browse in person — when I was a pre-T trans man getting my first formal suit, they were great getting me measured and making sure my suit fit me well; I would also recommend Corless Formalwear on Dominick Street, as they have a wide range of wedding suits with a variety of waistcoats with fine patterns on their fronts.

Because most of these formalwear waistcoats are advertised and marketed to men, their structure normally assumes a flat chest and a relatively square torso — many of the larger-sized waistcoats that are made to accommodate a larger breast will assume a belly to match, and if you’ve got a larger chest, you might find that you end up with a lot of give at the front your waistcoat.

While women’s formalwear outlets do sometimes sell waistcoats, they might not be in the style you’re looking for, with too high a crop on the hem to accentuate your waist where you want a squarer figure, or too much focus on a bust, especially if you’re trans or nonbinary and would prefer a garment that intends a squarer shape. Many formalwear places will tailor a suit, including the waistcoat, to fit when you purchase it, either as part of the initial purchase price or for a small additional fee, and you can absolutely say to your tailor that you’re looking to achieve a specific shape or do want to retain a squarer figure to the waistcoat while you’re buying it.

While it’s not necessarily possible to entirely change your figure by the tailoring of a garment like this, a waistcoat can go a long way to giving you a squarer figure without being worn too loosely — a waistcoat can be brought in slightly at the front without giving you a very narrow waist that will emphasise your bust or give you more of an hourglass figure that people associate with a more feminine physique, or might make you feel more dysphoric about your hips and/or waist. Longer waistcoats can be useful for this, as they give you a slightly boxier shape and will disguise the line of your hip against your waist.

A thing I particularly dislike about many waistcoats intended for women is that in order to make the shoulders appear narrower, they have thinner shoulders on the waistcoat that curl in closer to the neck. Apart from covering less of one’s body and being a bit less comfortable to wear, this can also emphasise the breast because it has a rounder, curvier shape rather than a squarer one, which bows out from the shape of the waistcoat collar; the shoulder may also drop at the outer edge to emphasise a downward angle on your shoulders, making them appear slimmer, and giving your torso a less square appearance.

Many waistcoats marketed to women assume that the waistcoat will be worn over just a brassiere, vest, or dress rather than worn over a collared shirt like they assume a man’s will be, and because of that the two above alterations to the shoulder might make it a bit less comfortable to wear with a shirt and/or under a suit jacket.

For further achieving a squarer shape if you’re worried about your bust, I would also recommend a double-breasted waistcoat if you can find one — a double-breasted waistcoat will have a bit more structure and form than a single-breasted one, which can give you a bit more support but also better maintain a flat, boxier front. Here are two examples from Next: one is double-breasted, and the other is single-breasted.

Another thing that can make a difference to your appearance, making your chest seem squarer or rounder, is the shape and the depth of your collar, including whether or not it has lapels, and also the shape of its arms — when a waistcoat has smaller armholes, it can provide a more tailored fit, but if you like to wear billowing sleeves or other larger, looser shirts, you might like to have it fitted more tightly in the front, but have larger armholes that allow for that loose sleeve.

Tuxedo-style waistcoats have a round collar that plunges considerably deeper than others, for example, and this can put a lot more emphasis on the breadth of your chest, and/or provide more space for you to wear an ornate jabot or wear a ruffled blouse. This rounder shape might contrast against squarer shoulders and hems or complement rounded edges.

A waistcoat with a mandarin or Nehru collar will come right up to your neck and can make the whole of your chest appear flatter or more uniform, as well providing more coverage and a bit more structure to the garment with support for your chest.

It’s worth considering how much you like a brightly-patterned fabric on your suit and the colours you prefer to wear, especially depending on what you plan to wear it with on your day-to-day. With a white shirt, for example? A plain blue one, or other colour?

A patterned shirt, such as a silk floral one, or a striped or checked one? A turtleneck or poloneck? Over t-shirts or a loose-fitting short-sleeved one? Over a bra or crop top, or over a naked chest?

If you’re going to be wearing it against bare skin, it’s worth considering the texture of any lined waistcoats and how they’ll feel against the skin, as well as how breathable they are and how much they will absorb sweat.

Buying Waistcoats Secondhand

People often ask me where I get my waistcoats from and how I get such a wide variety of patterns and styles, and the answer is pretty simple — I occasionally buy pieces in clearance from different stores, but mostly, I buy them secondhand!

Apart from regularly combing through charity shops and secondhand stores, I also look on some online stores regularly.

It’s worth noting that vintage stores will have a wider variety of high quality curated pieces, but are going to charge a higher price for them, whereas looking at your local charity shops (especially outside of the city if you live in a smaller town or village) might have excellent pieces that will be far cheaper!

Even just in a borough outside of Bristol City proper, I’ve been able to get pieces for a fractional cost of what I would pay at a similar store in the city centre, just by shopping on our doorstep rather than travelling into town.

Kilo sales and similar by-weight sales can be good for general vintage shopping, but it depends on the sort of waistcoat and vests you’re looking at — the thinner ones and lighter sweater vests are obviously going to be quite light, but thick woollen waistcoats and vests, as well as quilted ones, will be much heavier.

For buying online, I tend to buy from a mix of secondhand places, but mostly the same few every time. My favourites are:

• BeyondRetro, who have brick and mortar stores across the UK and Sweden respectively, plus another in Helsinki, as well as shipping internationally from their online store
• Rokit, who have brick and mortar stores in London, and also ship internationally
• Oxfam, who obviously have brick and mortar charity shops across the UK, but only ship to UK addresses

I don’t typically have a lot of money to spend on clothes bought new, and my wardrobe is not one that changes to match new styles or to be on-trend — subsequently when I look for pieces I look for longevity and something that I will wear regularly and that will last a long time, and also something that would not necessarily be extremely hard to repair.

For me, that means that many pieces from the 80s and earlier are worth getting, because even though they might be a bit more expensive, like… They’ve lasted 40 years. They will last a good while longer. In general, I would also counsel purchasing older pieces and moving away from fast fashion — there’s the ecological and moral value to it, but purely from a personal economic standpoint, new clothes simply aren’t made to last.

Anyway, some basics for buying secondhand waistcoats:

• Regardless of your own gender, especially for vintage pieces, do not worry about whether the piece is in the men’s or women’s section. The fit and comfort of it on your body matters way more than whether the retailer had an approximation of your gender identity in mind.
• If you like a particular style of waistcoat, you might find it easier to get in the men’s versus the women’s section — boxier shapes and more drab colours are usually marketed to men, brighter and patterned pieces with higher or more exaggerated waists and busts are usually marketed to women. Not always, though! It’s always worth having a cursory look for hidden gems.
• Especially for woollen pieces, look for fraying, visible wear, or damage around the collar, the armpits, and the hem. Damage isn’t the end of the world and you can repair it, but you can protect against it by patching those places or being careful about how you put it on and take it off, to ensure it lasts longer.
• Look at the label and see what materials it is made of. Be aware of your own allergies in this regard — I have a friend with an allergy to polyester, and a lot of costume pieces are always polyester, which sucks, but is better to know before you wear them for the day.
• If it’s a little too big, you can probably get it tailored or adjust it yourself to fit! Buying something that’s a little bit oversized will be a lot easier to have fitted to you than having something that’s slightly too small. With that said, if something is slightly too small, you might well be able to add some patches to extend the size and make it a little bit bigger.
• If you’re typically in the S and M sizes, don’t be the asshole that buys up all the XXL and XXXL stuff just to play with the fabric when there’s plenty of stuff that’s actually in your size — there’s already a shortage of stuff at the bigger sizes for plus-sized, tall, fat, and generally bigger people, especially at kilo sales and clothes swaps.
• You can also keep tailoring in mind for pockets! Just because a piece has fake pockets or lacks them doesn’t mean you can’t add them yourself — and ditto if you have an unlined embroidered piece but want to add a lining to protect the embroidery, you can always put an inside pocket in at the same time.
• If you are on the extra-small or extra-extra-large sizes, look out for clearance sales because the pieces that are in the “extremes” of size often go to clearance because there’s a limited market for them. If you are in that market, keep an eye out, and you’ll be able to pick up really cool pieces for super cheap!

When I search online, I normally go to the store, type in “waistcoat”, and search by low to high. From the above three stores, here are some highlights as I write up this piece on the 31/03/2023 — I’m not affiliated with any of these stores, just FYI!

First, from BeyondRetro, which had over 500 results when I searched “waistcoat”:

And another three, but this time they’re all L or above:

From Rokit, which only had like 20 results when I searched “waistcoat”, but the results it has rocks:

And from Oxfam, which had like 90 results:

Buying Elsewhere

Well, firstly, there’s buying from specialty stores.

What do I mean by specialty?

Well, I mean alt stores for different subcultures, where they’ll be more likely to have waistcoats as a matter of course.

Gay leather stores that have cool leather waistcoats for sale in with the coats and jackets; emo and gothic stores which will have waistcoats in Victorian or regency styles; period costume shops which will have all manner of semi period-accurate waistcoats and vests; steampunk stores, which will have all manner of semi period-accurate waistcoats and vests but with more cogs on.

LARP (Live-Action Roleplay) and theatre costume places will almost always have cool pieces in, and it might be worth checking their clearance and sales bins — just because something is sold as a costume piece doesn’t mean you have to wear it as a costume piece. If it’s well-constructed and made of a decent quality fabric, especially if you dress it down with jeans and a plain white shirt, no one will guess your sexy new waistcoat was once part of a Captain Hook costume kit.

And if they do guess, they’ll fucking love it.

I always recommend ViolentDelights, because they have a huge array of well-made clothes that last a good while and will take some wear and tear, and most of their garments have a lot of the XL, XXL, and XXXL sizes available!

(In fact, I would go so far as to say that especially for a lot of the steampunk and period costume places, they’ll often have the larger sizes available because these are subcultures that know there’s a huge diversity in people’s sizes and bodies, and they enjoy dressing up just as much as anybody else does. Not saying fatphobic stores don’t exist, just that these stores tend to do a bit better than mainstream fashion ones.)

Personal Style

Most of the formalwear I went through above are new from relatively mainstream retail stores — in my own collection of like 12 waistcoats, most them were bought secondhand, and many are vintage pieces.

Waistcoats for me are standard fare, and I tend to wear an outfit with a waistcoat one or two days a week at the very least and wear them casually, so I have a wider variety than someone who might only wear them on special occasions or to go with a suit.

I’m gonna go through a few of my own waistcoats, talking about where I got them from and how I wear them — the majority of my waistcoats have been taken in and tailored at the waist and shoulder (if you’re in Ireland, the people at Galway’s branch of the Zip Yard are great) to fit, because I am an extremely thin man as a result of my various maladies, and even men’s XS sizes don’t fit me or fit me oddly — with that said, many new waistcoats are only available in an S at the smallest, and when I buy secondhand I will buy an M-sized one if I really like the pattern or style.

To get 5 waistcoats and a suit jacket tailored at the Zip Yard was a little over €300, and obviously that’s pretty expensive altogether, but because I tend to buy most of my clothes secondhand and on sale or clearance, and because secondhand garments are often better crafted and more easily repaired than cheap new clothes, it tends to be a worthwhile investment.

A lot of the waistcoats I own I’ve already had for five to ten years, and expect to wear for decades more, and with secondhand pieces I can feel a lot more confident about doing that, because many of them were made when people still expected clothes to be repaired.

The above is a women’s waistcoat worn closed and then worn open — the shoulders are narrower and obviously it has that plunging breast that emphasises the chest; the front hem comes down in two pieces and then sticks to the hips, so it does tend to accentuate the shape of my waist, especially with that horizontal patternining, which is embroidered. It’s unlined and has a black satin backing, with has a simple ribbon backtie to pull in the waist.

I had it tailored to fit me more tightly around the waist, which mostly involved trimming down the back panel. I believe this piece is from the 90s or maybe the early 00s — if I have the right email, I bought it in 2014 for £4.50 from BeyondRetro.

This was a more recent purchase — it’s a Dress Leather leather waistcoat with pop buttons on the front. Based on how shitty the pockets are (they don’t even fit my travel card in them) and how high the waist is tailored, I’m assuming they were marketed to women. It’s unlined leather, which means that when you wear it without a shirt like I did in the second picture, the leather sticks to your skin, but it smells good and I like it a lot. I bought it for €28 from BeyondRetro in 2022.

Because of the high waist and the dark colouring, I tend to pair both of the above waistcoats with the black tuxedo jacket I’m wearing in the first image, which is cropped higher than other of my suit jackets, so they complement one another well.

A women’s high waisted waistcoat I wore for a while but ended up getting rid of because it made me feel dysphoric about my chest is this one:

This one was €16 from BeyondRetro and was made of a brown tweed — you see how much the arms scoop in from the armpit, and how the waistcoat makes it look like I have a larger chest than I do? The shoulders were quite thin and curled in closer to the neck than to my upper arm, as I mentioned in the formalwear section that women’s waistcoats often do, but the reason the waistcoat has such a front-prominent shape is because there’s two darts sewn into the fabric either side of the button-front.

Those darts provide more structure, and the idea is that your breast would have more space to sit without it being constricted by a flatter chest, and if you’re busty and want that exaggerated, it’s great! For me it just made me feel a bit nauseous — I enjoyed the narrow waist and that aspect of the shape, because a waistcoat like this is in-line with a cropped 19th century style, especially for cowboys and the like, but the chest was too much for me. Hopefully someone’s snapped it up from the shop I donated it to in Galway and it suits them better!

I think this waistcoat was £5 from BeyondRetro, bought in 2015. It’s embroidered in neat squares with a pastoral pattern and is unlined, with a green satin backing and a satin tie to bring it in at the waist. It’s one of the waistcoats I wear most often, and I love it to pieces.

This is the other waistcoat I wear most often, also embroidered and unlined with a green satin back — it’s got zoo animals on it, loads of different ones, and it’s so vibrant! This one I actually got in the same purchase as the pastoral one from BeyondRetro, although this one was £10.50.

Both of these green waistcoats I often wear with bigger jackets as they’ve got a slightly lower hemline — I have a green bandjacket that is cropped and I wear with both of them too, because the complementary green shades work really well together.

This is one of my waistcoats that was bought new, not secondhand! It’s a Devil Fashion red and gold heavy brocade waistcoat which is quilted, so it’s extremely warm and comfortable to wear in winter, and I fucking love it — in the summer, it is not a garment I wear often, as it’s just too heavy.

I bought it Size S from ViolentDelights for £59.99, and you can buy one here. They also have the same style of waistcoat in black & silver and black & gold.

This waistcoat was also bought new some time around 2018 by my grandmother from either Marks & Spencers or Next — she bought it for me in a size M, no idea for how much, and it was huge on me, but I really loved the pattern and style so I kept it until I could get it tailored. Now it is tailored, I wear it all the time! It’s a House of Cavani waistcoat, anyway!

It’s a check waistcoat with a blue silk lining and blue silk back with a belt to bring in the waist, and of course, it’s double-breasted with pockets that are just big enough to drop my phone into.

That’s just a selection of the waistcoats I have — generally, I wear waistcoats over the top of a plain collared shirt, or I wear them over a turtleneck, as I wear a lot of both. It’s my vague goal at the moment to get some more plain waistcoats and sweatervests, as I have several patterned shirts I don’t wear that much because it’s rarely warm enough that I only want to wear a shirt with no vest overtop of it.

Anyway, that’s the long and short of my waistcoat advice. More people need to get into waistcoats, they rock.

My last tip before you go is that not everywhere online actually labels waistcoats as waistcoats, so some search terms to keep in mind are: waistcoat and waist coat; sweatervest and sweater vest; wool vest; vest; gilet; sleeveless jacket; sleeveless sweater and sleeveless jumper; wool tabard; Argyle vests (for those with an Argyle patterning).

And, if you want a sleeveless garment that’s not disimilar in structure to a waistcoat and can be worn with the same undershirts, but you’d like it to have a skirt? A pinafore dress might suit you well!

Further reading:

• A Five-Minute Guide to Waistcoats and Vests, from Five-Minute History — I really recommend scrolling through this one for the gorgeous visuals alone.
• The VEST/WAISTCOAT, from the Fashion History Timeline
• How The Waistcoat Has Changed Through History, from Waistcoats Direct
• The Complete History of the Tuxedo, from Insider
• Rampley & Co.’s Guide to Jacket Linings