Doublet (clothing)

A doublet (/ˈdʌblɪt/; derived from Italian: giubbetta) is a kind of snug-fitting jacket that is shaped and fitted to a man's body. Until the end of the 15th century, the doublet was most often 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 which often matched. Women started wearing doublets in the 16th century. The doublet could be thigh length, hip length or waist length depending on the period, and worn over the shirt with matching or contrasting "hose", the term for the tight leggings and later breeches-like lower garment which were attached by lacing to the doublet with "points", the cord or ribbon laces.

Like the pourpoint, its ancestor, the doublet was used by soldiers 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 having a different shape and cut.

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 elaborate enough to be seen on its own.

Throughout the 250 years of its use, the doublet served the same purposes: to give the fashionable shape of the time, 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 were its style and cut.