---
node: garment_doublet
type: garment
slug: doublet
title: "Doublet"
lead: "The doublet is a close-fitting, waist-length men's jacket worn over a shirt from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. Buttoned up the front and often padded, it was the foundation of the fashionable man's dress."
published: 2026-08-09
updated: 2026-08-09
image_file: doublet.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doublet_MET_23.30.3_F.jpg"
image_author: "The Metropolitan Museum of Art"
image_license: "CC0"
---

## Overview

A doublet is a snug jacket that ends at the waist, shaped by seams and often stiffened or padded, and fastened down the front with buttons or hooks. Hose or breeches were tied to it at the waist, so it held up the lower garments as well as clothing the torso.

## How it is worn

It is buttoned closely over the shirt and worn under a cloak or jerkin; points (laces) once joined it to the hose, later replaced by hooks. Elizabethan doublets were stiffened into a pointed peascod belly, while the Cavalier doublet of the Stuart era hung softer and slashed to show the shirt.

## History

The doublet ran through Tudor and Stuart fashion as the essential male upper garment, its shape shifting from padded and rigid to loose and beribboned. By the late seventeenth century it gave way to the coat, waistcoat, and breeches that became the three-piece suit.