Pelisse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Pelisse was originally a cloak made of fur or lined in fur, most notably a type of dolman. Hussar regiments wore pelisses overhanging their shoulders that had fur trim.

In early 19th-century Europe, when military clothing was often used as inspiration for fashionable ladies' garments, the term was applied to a woman's long, fitted coat with set-in sleeves and the then-fashionable Empire waist. Although initially these Regency-era pelisses copied the Hussars' fur and braid, they soon lost these initial associations, and in fact were often made entirely of silk and without fur at all. They did, however, tend to retain traces of their military inspiration with frog fastenings and braid trim.

Pelisses lost even this superficial resemblance to their origins as skirts and sleeves widened in the 1830s, and the increasingly enormous crinolines of the 1840s and '50s caused fashionable women to turn to loose mantles, cloaks, and shawls instead.