Zoot suit occasionally with a long feather as decoration, and pointy, French-style shoes. A young Malcolm X, who wore zoot suits in his youth, described the zoot suit as: "a killer-diller coat with a drape shape, reet pleats, and shoulders padded like a lunatic's cell". Zoot suits usually featured a watch chain dangling from the belt to the knee or below, then back to a side pocket. A woman accompanying a man wearing a zoot suit commonly would herself wear a flared skirt and a long coat. The amount of material and tailoring required made them luxury items, so much so that
Over-frock coat almost universally black, and was worn with waistcoat and trousers, which could be of any colour. Black coat, waistcoat, and trousers - "frock suits" - were worn only for funerals (as a 'mourning suit') and the most formal of occasions. The trousers that went with it - what would be known as formal trousers - could either be checked or striped, or have no pattern at all. The frock coat, and with it the over-frock, was increasingly rarely worn as casual wear towards the end of the 19th century, as the "sack suit", the comparatively loose modern suit was adopted