Peacoat -- This is a navy, hip length double-breasted coat, vertical slash pockets, made of Melton cloth, a heavy compact wool fabric named for Melton Mowbray, a town in Leicestershire, England.

This coat originated in the early 1700’s with the Dutch “pijjekker”, “Pij” meaning a coarse wool fabric and “jekker” standing for jacket.  Shortened to P-coat by British sailors.  The Royal Navy had no regulation uniforms until 1850.  Sailors dressed themselves and the peacoat was a longtime seagoing favorite. 

But the coat made a dramatic entry into London social circles with the help of dandy Count Alfred Guillaume Gabriel d’Orsay (1801 – 1852), a French émigré to England in 1815, who by 1821 was London’s reigning arbiter of men’s fashion.  The story told is that d’Orsay was out riding one day without his overcoat when it started to rain.  He came across a sailor in a peacoat, bought it for 10 guineas, and just by wearing it endeared to the fashion conscious.