Portuguese Officer of the 16th Century

  (Yes, men really did wear tights to fancy dress balls!  Here's a Canadian gentleman in Tudor-era costume, complete with tights and tall boots.  Click the image for a larger version.)

Left: Edward Waldo, as "Portuguese Officer of the 16th Century", Montréal, QC, 1881 by Notman & Sandham.  Image © McCord Museum.

The photograph is part of an online exhibition of photographs of fancy dress costumes from balls and skating parties; the museum's description of it states, in part:

"Mr. Waldo wore this costume to several different balls and carnivals in the 1880s, in both Ottawa and Montreal. Like women, men in fancy dress, enjoyed flouting everyday conventions. Under no other circumstances would Victorian men ever expose this much of their legs. Journalists chronicled a great deal of anxiety among men over the adequacy of their legs and the decision to expose their calves or thighs."

"This photograph was probably taken in the Notman studio in Montreal, where Mr. Waldo attended Mrs. D. Lorn Macdougall's ball and a skating carnival two weeks later"

"Mr. Waldo wore this costume at least three times in 1881, when this photograph was taken, and again in 1889. He had it remade for another ball in 1896."