Belly-cut Collar

"On the day of Bud Jenning's funeral, Pete went into the back of the closet and brought out his bridge coat, per regulations. This was the most stylish item in the Navy officer's wardrobe. Pete had never had occasion to wear his before. It was a double-breasted coat made of navy-blue melton cloth and came down almost to the ankles. It must have weighed ten pounds. It had a double row of gold buttons down the front and loops for shoulder boards, big beautiful belly-cut collar and lapels, deep turnbacks on the sleeves, a tailored waist, and a center vent in back that ran from the waistline to the bottom of the coat.

From a "vintage" bridge coat. From here.

Never would Pete, or for that matter many other American males in the mid-twentieth century, have an article of clothing quite so impressive and aristocratic as that bridge coat. At the funeral the nineteen little Indians who were left--Navy boys!--lined up manfully in their bridge coats. They looked so young. Their pink, lineless faces with their absolutely clear, lean jawlines popped up bravely, correctly, out of the enormous belly-cut collars of the bridge coats. They sang an old Navy hymn, which slipped into a strange and lugubrious minor key here and there, and included a stanza added especially for aviators. It ended with: 'O hear us when we lift our prayer for those in peril in the air.'" (7)



Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Bantam Books, 1979.

Wolfe seems to...if not make up fashion/clothing descriptors I think I should have already known or assume to be highly proprietary ("The Boston cracked shoe look"), then to have picked up on extremely esoteric clothing vocabulary, such as "belly-cut collar." Because although I don't own a copy of any fashion encyclopedia yet (still), I can't find a good photo/description, just links to The Right Stuff on Google Books and other blogs who got there first. Anyone got any leads?

Also, this. Looks familiar...