Doublet (clothing)

A doublet (/ˈdʌblɪt/;^[1] derived from the Ital. giubbetta^[2]) is a man's snug-fitting jacket that is shaped and fitted to a man's body. The garment was worn in Spain, and spread to the rest of Western Europe, from the late Middle Ages up to the 17th century. Until the end of the 15th century, the doublet was usually worn under another layer of clothing such as a gown, mantle, or houppelande when in public. In the 16th century it was covered by the jerkin. Women started wearing doublets in the 16th century,^[3] and these garments later evolved as the corset and stay. The doublet was thigh length, hip length or waist length and worn over the shirt or drawers.

Like the pourpoint, its ancestor, the doublet was used by soldiers^[4] in the 15th and 16th centuries to facilitate the wearing of the brigandine, breastplate, cuirass and plackart which had to cut into the waist in order to shift their weights from the shoulders to the hips. However, it differs from the pourpoint by being shut with lacing instead of being closed with buttons and didn't have the same shape and cut. The buttons make a comeback in the 16th century.

In the 16th century, it might have featured a stomacher at the front. By the 1520s, the edges of the doublet more frequently met at the center front. Then, like many other originally practical items in the history of men's wear, from the late 15th century onward it became elaborated enough to be seen on its own.

Throughout the 250 years of its use, the doublet served the same purpose: to give the fashionable shape of the time, in order to add padding to the body under armour in war, to support the hose by providing ties, and to provide warmth to the body. The only things that changed about the doublet over its history was its style and cut.