coat "anatomy" question

Placket

Placket, french fly placket, hidden placket.

I have drafting instructions for a hidden placket for shirts, if you want... you'd need to resize the dimensions for most coatings and coat buttons, but it'd be the same idea.

I have a shirt placket around somewhere, thanks, and will soon have a coat pattern. Never done one, but am sick of what I have been seeing for sale.

I haven't the foggiest, but the word "placket" has a fascinating history. It started out meaning "petticoat", back when a petticoat was a skirt and a "skirt" was a coat-tail. Origin of this meaning unknown -- my first thought was that it was a variation of "petticoat", but "pecket" or "packet" would be *much* more plausible. A placket needed an opening so that you could get into it -- and so that the wearer could get into the pockets worn underneath. This opening was called the "placket hole" -- and "placket hole" became the name of this kind of opening, just as we tend to refer to very narrow hems as "shirttail hems". "Shirttail hem" is losing its force now that shirts with sharply-curved tails are worn only for dress-up, but "placket hole" survived the placket -- and then lost the now-unnecessary "hole", just as "turkey bird" lost the "bird".

The meaning widened to refer to any sort of slit opening -- and now seems to have widened further to include openings that extend from edge to edge.

And in an SF story I wrote -- but never submitted -- many years ago, I took "placket" as the name of a gadget used to open and close the successor of the zipper. I mentioned it, by luck rather than sense, only in connection with very formal clothing where you wouldn't mind needing aids to get in and out, and would mind having visible fasteners.

"Fly" has a similar history: Fly = flag = vertical flap. A "fly opening" is an opening with a fly behind it. Men's trousers always had fly openings, the wearers of the trousers, not interested in sewing details, shortened this to "fly", and now "fly" refers to an opening at the front of a pair of pants regardless of whether or not it has a fly.

And, like placket-hole, it's spread to mean a placket that *looks* like the opening in a pair of pants, and by this indirect route the word has transferred from the flap under the zipper to the line of stitching that secures the edge of the fly-shaped facing over the zipper.

Joy Beeson

Interesting theory but I don't think so. The origin is clearly French, plaquette.

"Small book"? I've got to get a bigger French dictionary.

Joy Beeson

Plaquette....... thin metal plate. There is also placard which likely also figures in the etymology of this word. Here's just a tidbit from the OED.... there's a great deal more but I don't want to infringe on copyright:

"[Prob. a variant of PLACARD n. Perh. cf. Middle French plaquette thin plate of metal (see PLACARD n.), Anglo-Norman plakett edict, ordinance (also lettre plakett; 14th cent. or earlier). Cf. also later PLACATE n.]

I. A piece or panel of clothing.

1. An apron or underskirt; (by metonymy) a woman. Now hist."

The etymology of petticoat is obviously the combination of petty and coat--- minor (subordinate) garment. I tend to rely heavily on the OED for these kinds of things.

Phae