In July 2015 we presented our smoking cap edition of the Parlorcraft Circle. Beautifully embellished smoking caps, jackets, and slippers were popular lounge wear for fashionable Victorian gentlemen of the mid-nineteenth century. They replaced the looser banyan dressing gowns and mitred sleeping caps of the eighteenth-century gentleman. Smoking caps were especially widespread after the Crimean War, when Turkish tobacco became popular in Britain. Gentleman retiring to brandy and tobacco after dinner wanted to protect their hair and clothing, so they could rejoin the ladies afterwards without smelling of smoke.
