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... It was on this tour that the Prince of Wales (a well known bon-vivant), insisted that the gentlemen within his party dress correctly for dinner, even when they were living in tents while out in the sticks on hunting expeditions. In order to contend with the heat these fellows felt obliged to lop the tails off their formal evening wear and thus, inadvertently, are credited with the creation of the dinner jacket (or tuxedo)...

@Julian: Isn't the dinner jacket as the name itself suggests (Jacket) an American invention?

Digvijay ~ ... you are quite correct in suggesting that 'jacket', is in origin, an American term ~ but ~ in Britain the word had become interchangeable with the more traditional/ formal 'coat' or 'suit' by the mid-19th century ... BUT, you are labouring under a false impression if you believe that the dinner suit/ jacket is an American invention (although it first rose to widespread popularity there) ~ the following article sheds more light on the subject. Although, after reading it I am inclined to believe that the story [as above] about the D.J. being first created as an adaptation for the Indian climate may be apocryphal ! http://www.carltonsuithire.co.nz/origin_of_formal_wear.htm

Julian the American term is Tuxedo.

@ Julian: As the article also suggests lapels (even their absence ) and no. of buttons is all that is left to experiment with now when it comes to a dinner jacket.The prince coat or Jodhpuri coat is however an Indian invention which was a shortened version of the achkan/ sherwani (Indian frock-coat) but it's peculiarity was that it could hide a paunch like a clever double-breasted one does. In India it seems it will never go out of fashion.

Well - for what it's worth - Indian men look fantastic in sherwanis (from the viewpoint of a non-Indian woman, anyway!). And the mention of the Jodhpuri coat, reminds me of the other famous sartorial invention to come out of Jodhpur. It is a delight, when in India, to see jodhpurs worn as they were invented - with wide flaps between the knee and the hip. This is how it was in Birtain when I was young - we all wore those. Now the western fashion is for skin-tight, stretchable versions. Thank heavens some things are not copied in India - because you are more often than not right, and we are wrong.

Thanks Phillipa you are our best brand ambassador.

...Hmmm ~ Perhaps, with the onset of a certain amount of "middle-aged spread" I should acquire for myself a Jodhpuri coat !!...

Jodhpurs are seriously coming back in fashion. Attend a party in Jaipur and see how many don them.