Banyan, Dress for Excess
Dress for Excess: Fashion in Regency England, the fashion exhibition at the Brighton Pavilion this year, features a quilted printed (chintz) banyan, or men’s dressing robe worn over a shirt and knee breeches. (Click here to see the full image of the robe .)
When at home, a gentleman would change into an informal knee-length dressing gown known as a banyan, and wear it around his family at breakfast, playing games, such as cards or backgammon, and while reading in his library or writing letters. One can readily imagine Mr. Bennet wearing a banyan in his study, and most definitely Mr. Woodhouse (image below), as he sat by the fire reading a newspaper.
Mr Woodhouse (Bernard Hepton) in a fur-lined fitted man's dressing gown, or banyan
The banyan was a loose, full kimono style in the early 18th century, but later evolved into a more fitted style with set-in sleeves, similar to a man’s coat. It was known as an Indian gown, nightgown, morning gown, or dressing gown. First used as a type of robe, it was originally worn for leisure and in at-home situations; but came to be worn as a coat out-of-doors, in the street, or for business. Many gentlemen had their portraits made while wearing banyans. They were made from all types of fabrics in cotton, silk, or wool (Cunningham, 1984). – Cross cultural influences on fashion prior to the twentieth Century
Nicholas Boylston in a loose fitting banyan, 1767. Painted by John Singleton Copeley. Image @Wikipedia
More on the Topic
- Jenny La Fleur: Looking to the Gentlemen
- Click here to see one on Etsy that has been made to order.
- The Manchester Banyan: Sewing Project Part One ; Part Two, Sleeves;The Manchester Banyan, Part Three; Part Four, Collar
- Dress for Excess: Fashion in Regency England
- Regency Underthings: Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine
- Gentlemen at Leisure: Banyans
- 1700’s Gentleman’s Banyan Pattern
Tartan wool banyan lined in bottle green silk, 1800. Image @Christie's
Jane Austen's World 
So anything that would qualify as a dressing gown would be known as a banyan? Just for men, I assume. This was an enjoyable post.
Yes, just for men. Some of the ladies would wear their elaborate morning gowns during the day sometimes all the way up to dinner.
http://historicalfashion.tumblr.com/post/524097229/morning-dress-ackermans-may-1817
Curiously, OED only has this sense:
‘ . . 3. A loose gown, jacket, or shirt of flannel, worn in India. (Originally attrib. from sense 1.)
. . 1773 R. Graves Spiritual Quixote III. xi. iv. 198 His banyan, with silver clasp, wrapt round His shrinking paunch.
1854 J. H. Stocqueler Hand-bk. Brit. India (ed. 3) 315 Even in the low country a light flannel banian (jacket or shirt) is of service.’
So if you can find a contemporary example of the word used in your sense you should send it in to the OED to be included when they next revise ‘banyan’.
From what I can see, the banyan seems to be synonymous with the morning gown or robe de chambre.
Further to that, between 1786 and 1795 my gggggfr made innumerable morning gowns and robes de chambre for Prinny, usually quilted, or in some cases lined with astrakhan and interlined with eiderdown. As the prices are the same the garments look interchangeable. There is no mention of a banyan, so although there may be a subtle difference, it suggests to me that that are all pretty much the same thing.
They are, Charles. The more I have looked up banyan, the more I realize that it is another name for dressing gown or morning robe, or robe de chambre. I find it interesting, though, that so many sources mention banyan instead of the other terms.
It’s probably just a vogue word. With the increased interest trade-wise in India and the far east towards the end of the eighteenth century, a more exotic word must have been attractive.
[…] and more information on how the banyan was worn during the late eighteenth century in the article Regency Fashion: Banyan, a man’s dressing gown at the blog Jane Austen’s […]
In fact, the V&A has one, possibly two, examples of banyans for women.