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
Skeleton suit trimmed with lace or ruffles. Skeleton suits are one of the children's nostalgic Regency fashions typical of the illustrations of Kate Greenaway. Baumgarten, Linda: "What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America", Yale University Press, 2002. Skeleton suit A skeleton suit was an outfit of clothing for small boys, popular from about 1790 to the late 1820s, after which it increasingly lost favor with the advent of trousers. It consisted of a tight short- or long-sleeved coat or jacket buttoned to a pair of high-waisted trousers. Skeleton suits are often described as one of the earliest