22 Facts About Frock coat

Frock coat is a formal men's coat characterised by a knee-length skirt cut all around the base just above the knee, popular during the Victorian and Edwardian periods .

However, by the 1820s, the frock coat was introduced along with full-length trousers, perhaps inspired by the then casual country leisure wear frock.

The single-breasted frock coat sporting the notched lapel was more associated with day-to-day professional informal wear.

The cassock, a coat that is buttoned up to the neck, forming a high, stand-up Roman collar for clergymen, was harmonised to the style of the contemporary frock coat.

The frock coat began as a form of undress, the clothing worn instead of the dress coat in more informal situations.

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At this period, the frock coat became the most standard form of coat for formal day time dress.

Around the 1880s and increasingly through into the Edwardian era, an adaptation of the riding coat called a Newmarket coat, that rapidly and ever since became known as a morning coat, began to supplant the frock coat as daytime full dress.

Once considered a casual equestrian sports coat, the morning coat slowly started to become both acceptable and increasingly popular, as a standard day-time town full dress alternative to the frock coat, a position which the morning coat enjoys to this day.

Morning coat was particularly popular amongst fashionable younger men and the frock coat increasingly came to be worn mostly by older conservative gentlemen.

The morning coat gradually relegated the frock coat only to more formal situations, to the point that the frock coat eventually came to be worn only as court and diplomatic dress.

The more the morning Frock coat became fashionable as correct daytime full dress, the more the lounge suit became acceptable as an informal alternative.

Finally the frock coat became relegated to the status of ultra-formal day wear, worn only by older men.

The frock coat barely survived the 1930s only as an ultra-formal form of court dress, until being finally officially abolished in 1936 as official court dress by Edward VIII .

The standard colour of a civilian frock coat was solid black but later, in the Victorian era, charcoal grey became an acceptable but less common alternative and Midnight Blue was an even rarer alternative colour.

In keeping with the rules set for morning dress, trousers matching the Frock coat were considered a somewhat less formal alternative.

The elegance of the form of the frock coat derived from its hourglass shape with a closely cut waist which at times around the 1830s-40's was reinforced further with padding to round out the chest.

The silhouette of the historically accurate frock coat has the waist seam precisely tailored to permit the classical and elongating hourglass figure with the strong waist suppression.

Buttons on a frock coat were always covered in cloth, often to match the silk on the revers, showing in the triangle of lining wrapped over the inside of the lapels.

The lapel revers from the inside of the Frock coat wrapped over to the front, creating a small triangle of silk, while the outer half was cut from two strips of the body fabric.

Proper accessories to wear with the frock coat included a non-collapsible top hat and a boutonniere in the lapel.

The cravat was usual with a frock coat when worn in more formal occasions through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, although the long necktie came to be worn increasingly after the turn of the century in the same manner as it is today with morning dress.

Until the modern cut away morning coat was worn, the single breasted frock coat was called a morning coat and was used in such a less formal context and double breasted coats made this way would often not fasten, being held loosely together in much the same way the modern morning coat is, with a single link.