Waistcoat

Archivist's Excerpt from: Trinkets, Tech, & Tinkery: A Comprehensive Inventory of All Possible Equipment One Might Need When Circumnavigating the World, Inside & Out, Tabletop Edition, CVI 42.5

Do not be fooled by the name; it is not, in fact, a coat, in the contemporary sense of the term. The traditional gentleman's waistcoat is very much like its replacement from later, lesser Confluences, the vest, except that the Waistcoat boasts a lapel, reason being that the Waistcoat is meant to be worn without a jacket, but can still be worn with one. It thus has the more "finished" look of the lapel, where the vest looks rather silly without the accompanying jacket.

As with all such types of apparel, the lowest button is never to be fastened, as it causes the whole waistcoat to rise up like a tortoise shell when the gentleman sits down or raises his leg. Its secondary purpose is, of course, the proper housing of timepieces in one of the lower front pockets, generally the left, if the gentleman is right-handed, as this allows the gentleman to check the time with his left hand while still signing important documents with his right, which the reader certainly already knows.