Man’s waistcoat with a 2-inch (5 cm) standing collar, revers, straight fronts and skirts reaching to the hip. Each front has a welted pocket. The fronts and pocket flaps are made of bleached cotton with narrow stripes of twill weave, the back of fustian. The waistcoat is lined with fustian. It is embroidered-to-shape with silver spangles and silk floss in green, yellow, purple and shades of pink, and tamboured with silver filé and pink silk thread, in a pattern of abstract floral sprigs, swags and tassels, on the pocket welts, revers and collar, front edges and hems. The fronts are embroidered with repeating abstract sprigs. The waistcoat has a double-breasted appearance. There are 12 embroidered buttons, set back from 10 worked buttonholes along the left front, with 12 embroidered buttons on the right front.

The waistcoat was altered in the late 19th century, probably for theatre costume; it was enlarged with insertions of linen at the shoulder seams, back collar and centre-back seam.