"When are you going to get them off, then?" demanded good-humoured Labour peers, delighted to have granted the Lord Chancellor his heart's desire. And Lord Irvine smiled in acknowledgement of a famous - indeed, as some would see it, historic - victory.
On Monday night, in rare obliging mood, their lordships agreed that the Lord Chancellor should in future be allowed to "dress down", exchanging his tights, breeches and buckled shoes for trousers and footwear of a more modern variety. They also approved his request to be permitted to leave the Woolsack, seat of the speaker in the Lords, and operate from the government front bench while sitting as a minister and dealing with government legislation before the house.
For Earl Ferrers and many others this was a modernising step too far, evidence of this government's contempt for history. Earl Ferrers wasn't at all mollified to learn that, when he vacates the Woolsack, Lord Irvine's role as speaker will be assumed by one of a panel of deputy chairmen. He shouldn't be "moving about", Earl Ferrers insisted, nor should he "lightly toss his responsibilities on one side and give them to others".
When people looked at the Woolsack, he argued, "it's not just Lord Irvine, it's the Lord Chancellor, and it's wrong to dress down. He will end up wearing the same uniform as the clerks on the table with a wig and gown".
Black Rod, the Gentleman Usher and the doorkeepers were keeping their uniform. So why shouldn't the Lord Chancellor, demanded Earl Ferrers, who could see all too clearly where the whole thing might lead: "Tradition is important, and we are benefactors of it. This is like telling the guardsmen at the Trooping of the Colour not to wear their bearskins because they are old-fashioned."
All highly amusing stuff. But for critics and supporters of the House of Lords alike, deadly serious, too. For at stake here is not just the matter of whether Lord Irvine can reasonably be expected to wear his wig for up to 14 hours a day.
Underlying the debate over "fancy dress" is the deep apprehension and fear of a hereditary peerage now facing the axe. And it is perhaps appropriate that the battle of the Lord Chancellor's breeches should be played out in the same week as the most significant and protracted battle between the Commons and the Lords for decades.
Tony Blair reacted furiously to the Lords' decision on Tuesday to reject, for a fourth time, the government's proposal for a "closed list" system of proportional representation for next year's European elections. With the present parliamentary session due to end today there appeared, at the time of writing, every possibility that the bill would be lost.
But as the Tories considered the wisdom of continuing confrontation or climb-down, ministers dramatically raised the stakes, signalling that they would probably not be able to invoke the Parliament Act in the new session in order to restore the bill and have it on the statute book in time for the election next May.
Delighted for once to have the upper hand, Mr William Hague had hailed the Lords vote as a victory for democracy, and for the electorate over the "selectorate" of the party machine.
Suddenly he was faced with the logical consequence of killing off the government's bill: a reversion, for next year's contest, to the first-past-the-post system, a move which many Labour ministers would privately welcome, and which could write off Tory hopes of large-scale gains courtesy of the proposed switch to proportional representation.
Whatever the final outcome of that struggle between principle and pragmatism, Mr Blair and his ministers are clearly delighted that their lordships are making the case for upper house reform. Mr Jack Straw denounced the Lords' action as "an abuse of power", and the Tories for hypocrisy, as they introduced their own form of closed-list system for the elections to the Northern Ireland Forum.
Anyway, he reasoned, some Westminster constituencies effectively operated on "closed lists of one", while Mrs Margaret Beckett, the Leader of the Commons, mocked hereditary peers who had been operating from their own closed lists for hundreds of years.
Politics, as they say, and as the Tories continue to discover, is a rough old trade. From the teeth of defeat, the government sees potential victory in an epic battle between "the people" and the peers.
In one concession to the traditionalists, Lord Irvine made it clear he will continue wearing his wig and gown for big ceremonials. So he will be in full regalia for next week's state opening, when Queen Elizabeth announces the bill signalling the end of the voting line for hereditary peers.