Man's fancy dress jacket and waistcoat in the 'majos' style, 1800-25, Spanish; blue silk, yellow silk with applied colour ribbons, spangles

Man’s fancy dress jacket and waistcoat in the ‘majos’ style. The jacket is made of pale blue silk, reaching to the waist with a 2⅜-inch (6 cm) standing collar, shaped revers [lapels], long, curving, 2-piece sleeves, and 2 shallow skirts at centre back. The jacket fronts are lined with pale yellow silk taffeta; the back with linen. It is decorated with ¼-inch (5 mm) wide silk ribbons in white and shades of pink and yellow, and silver spangles on the front, pockets, sleeves, collar and along the seams. A gathered length of 3 ½ inch (9 cm) wide pink silk and silver ribbon is sewn over each shoulder seams There are 9 worked buttonholes on each sleeve with corresponding silver passementerie buttons (2 missing).

The waistcoat is made of yellow silk, lined with linen and a linen back. It is applied with ¼-inch (5 mm) wide silk ribbons in yellow, green and shades of pink, stitched with silver spangles. There are 17 worked buttonholes on the left front and 17 silver passementerie buttons on the right.

During the eighteenth century, Madrid attracted immigrants from other areas of Spain who brought with them distinctive styles of regional dress. These newcomers were known as ‘majos’. Élite society in Madrid adopted the picturesque majos’ dress, as a patriotic Spanish style and a rejection of French fashion, and continued to wear it in the 19th century as fancy dress.

919&A-1901