This garment represents an 18th-century style of jacket known as a Brunswick. A shortened version of the formal sack, the Brunswick became popular in the 1760s for travelling and informal dress. Although this example has a hood, the very fine watered silk suggests it was intended for casual day wear rather than the rigours of 18th-century travel. Some variations have wrist-length sleeves, and buttons at the elbow of this one indicate that it might once have had removable extensions of the sleeve to cover the forearms.