A Collector of Saintes: 18th Century Menswear…

The Dupuy Mestreau Museum in the city of Saintes, France is advertised as a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ with about 3,000 artifacts showcasing the cultural history of Saintes. This is the fourth and final in my series highlighting some of my favorite objects here.

Until my visit to this museum, I had not had an opportunity to get up close and personal to pieces from this period in menswear. All of these pieces were laid or hung flat in display cases, so I have rotated the orientation on some of them to better show them as they would have presented on a human form.

There were three waistcoats in this collection. The case at lower right also included shoe buckles and some other items I could not identify.

Here are additional detail shots of the waistcoat in the previous photo. I have never seen one that used fringe / frayed edges as a decorative element.

This next coat and waistcoat combo was one of the most impressive examples of embroidery I have seen outside of Qing Dynasty Chinese court robes.

Lastly, and perhaps from a different time period, is this one, perhaps belonging to a gentleman farmer. It looked like it might have been made from something like denim. I was quite taken by the side pleating and the cuff treatment.

This museum was extensive, displaying over 3,000 artifacts. I also took photos of ceramics and furniture, and plan to post selected items to Instagram over the next few weeks.