---
node: garment_frock_coat
type: garment
slug: frock_coat
title: "Frock coat"
lead: "The frock coat is a man's coat cut with a waist seam and a full skirt reaching the knee all the way round, unlike the tailcoat it replaced. It was the standard formal day coat of the nineteenth century and the ancestor of the suit jacket."
published: 2026-08-18
updated: 2026-08-18
image_file: frock_coat.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frock_Coat_April_1904.jpg"
image_author: "Fashion (magazine) — a wedding plate of April 1904, double-breasted frock coats"
image_license: "Public domain"
---

## Overview

It is cut in two parts joined at the waist, so the body fits closely and the skirt below hangs full and uncut at the front — the feature that distinguishes it from the tailcoat, whose front is cut away. It could be single or double-breasted, with a stepped or peaked lapel, and was made in black or dark grey wool for town. The skirt was lined and often weighted, and the waist seam let the coat be fitted to a body rather than draped over one.

## How it is worn

It was worn buttoned, over a waistcoat and a high-collared shirt, with trousers in a contrasting grey and a top hat. Buttoning was the etiquette that mattered: closed in public, opened when seated. It marked the man who did not do manual work, and by the 1880s it had become so exactly the uniform of respectable business that a photograph of a city street is a photograph of frock coats.

## History

It develops out of the earlier riding frock in the Regency period and becomes the standard formal day wear of the Victorian era, displacing the tailcoat into evening use. The morning coat, cut away at the front for riding, then displaced it from the 1890s, and the lounge suit displaced both. Its direct descendant is the modern suit jacket, which is the frock coat with the skirt cut off — the waist seam is what survived.