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A frock coat is a men's coat characterized by knee-length skirts all around, in contrast to tail coats and cutaways. Frock coats emerged in the later eighteenth century as country clothing, from the traditional working-class coat called a frock, and became fashionable for dress and streetwear in the first half of the nineteenth century. Some styles of frock coat have a seam at the waist.
Frock coats usually button only to the waist, and may be decorated with a pair of buttons at the back waist.
The term derives from frock, an ancient word for a loose outer garment, which is also the source of modern frock for a priest's robe or a woman's dress.
Military wear
The cut of a frock coat with a waist seam flatters a man's figure, as opposed to a sack coat, and such frock coats remain part of some twentieth century military uniforms. They can either be single-breasted as in army uniforms, or double-breasted as in navy uniforms.
Formal and western wear
Frock coats (usually with matching trousers) are occasionally worn as formal wear, especially for weddings. Frock coats are also worn as a formal coat with western wear.
Orthodox Jewish Yeshivah World
In the Lithuanian Yeshivah world, many prominent figures wear a black frock (and either a Homburg hat or Fedora hat) as formal wear. Such garb is reserved for a Rosh Yeshiva, Mashgiach, or special maggid shiur. Many Hassidim, particularly Lubavitcher Hassidim, also wear a frock. In Yiddish, a frock is also known as a kapota.
References
- Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500-1914, Abrams, 1996. ISBN 0810963175
- Baumgarten, Linda: What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, Yale University Press,2002. ISBN 0300095805
- Black, J. Anderson and Madge Garland: A History of Fashion, Morrow, 1975. ISBN 0688028934
- de Marly, Diana: Working Dress: A History of Occupational Clothing, Batsford (UK), 1986; Holmes & Meier (US), 1987. ISBN 0841911118
- Tozer, Jane and Sarah Levitt, ''Fabric of Society: A Century of People and their Clothes 1770-1870, Laura Ashley Press, ISBN 0950891304
See also
Formalwear | Jewish religious clothing | History of clothing (Western fashion)
"Frock coat"