when did cloaks and capes gone out of fashion

WHEN DID CLOAKS AND CAPES GONE OUT OF FASHION FREE

Among characters who couldn’t spell “caper” without a cape were The Three Musketeers, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Zorro.Īmid all the suave rapier-waving and damsel-saving going on in the swashbuckler genre, a work of literature emerged that dragged the cape into the world of the macabre and the supernatural: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Many of the protagonists belonging to the genre were known to throw on a cape, grab a sword, and head for the forests in search of mischief. The cape as the preferred outerwear of adventurers gained ground with the dashing swashbuckler archetype, first established in literature of the 16th century but most popular during the mid-19th- to early 20th centuries.

WHEN DID CLOAKS AND CAPES GONE OUT OF FASHION FREE

The practical approach of wearing a cape over one shoulder in order to keep one’s sword arm free became a fashion trend during the late 16th century, when gentlemen donned the “mandilion,” a hip-length cloak with open side seams. These seeds of “cape as garment of flamboyance,” thus planted, would be harvested centuries later by cape aficionado Oscar Wilde, then augmented with glitter by performers like Liberace. To throw back the sides of a cloak, or toss one side of a cape over one’s shoulder, is a pleasingly dramatic way of revealing a weapon, showing one’s true identity, or punctuating a satisfying riposte, whether physical or verbal. This “flinging of the cloak” is an early appearance of the cape as a mantle fit for bouts of flouncing. In 1594, Italian fencing master Giacomo di Grasse penned a True Arte of Defence, in which he included several tips on vanquishing an enemy when armed with a sword-and-cloak combo. Over the centuries, the cape and the sword came to be regarded as a package deal. Centurions fighting under their command got to wear capes, too, but had to settle for the sagum, a less majestic, less flowy version that fastened with a clasp across the shoulders. Military commanders of the Roman Empire donned paludamentum - a long, flowing cape fastened at one shoulder - as part of their ceremonial battle preparations.

“To escape,” wrote Walter William Skeat in An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, “is to ex-cape oneself, to slip out of one’s cape and get away.”įrom the early days of the cape, when Latin was still spoken on the streets, capes spoke of battle, status, and statuses in battle. The Latin word for cape, cappa, forms the basis for the word “escape,” which comes from ex cappa. That’s a story that starts with the very etymology of the term “cape.”

When did cloaks and capes gone out of fashion