The buttons were placed close together whether the jackets were double or single breasted. Trousers were tight and stove-pipe skinny. Tweed cloth became popular at this time. The word tweed is an English variant of the Scottish word tweel , itself a variation of twill . Tweel refers to hand-woven wool fabric from the Scottish highlands and islands.
Historians differ on whether tweed originated in the highlands or the south of Scotland.
The name became associated with the Tweed River which forms part of the boundary between England and Scotland. Tweed eventually became the general term for all carded homespun wool, whether it was Scotch tweed, Irish tweed, Donegal tweed, Cheviot tweed or Harris tweed. Flannel was the other popular fabric of the era. The word flannel may be derived from the Welsh word gwalnen , meaning woolen cloth. Flannel was originally made as a heavy, comfortable, soft and slightly napped wool cloth.