Friday, May 7, 2010

Butterick 4550 - Men's or Boys' Outing or Negligee Shirt


Between 1905 and 1920.  Here's a blow up so that you can see some detail.  The negligee shirt is on the left, and outing shirt is in the middle; the pointed yoke is generally seen on more casual shirts, though it does show up on dress shirts now and again.


Note how similar this shirt is to Butterick 1074.

Remember that at this time, there are four broadly recognized types of shirts for men:


The outing shirt variation is a descendent of Cosmopolitan 655.

The various collar and cuff options can be a little bewildering.  Outing shirts typically have attached collars, though they were sometimes offered for sale with detachable collars, presumably as a way to extend the life of the garment.  Wristbands worn without cuffs (either attached or detachable) are appropriate only for outing and work shirts.

2 comments:

Vande Historic Costuming said...

Heavens! What an informative post!
It took me quite a while to work out all the differences in men's shirts (I just woke up and perhaps the coffee hasn't kicked in..) Isn't it interesting that the coat shirt has a curved front below the cf underfacing, and the shaping from the side seam towards the front...
What a lot of pattern variations to choose from!

andrea.at.the.blue.door said...

Those odd overlapping lower fronts seem to show up on men's shirt patterns until the late 1930s.

I have several shirt patterns that offer an option to slope the bottom fronts away from the side seams; possibly this was a trimmer options for slender men. Off the top of my head, I can't recall that any of my shirt patterns have been cut along this optional cutting line.