page_title: Tailcoat
section_title: Morning coat
hierarchical_section_title: Tailcoat / Morning coat
caption_attribution_description: English: Typical morning dress at a 1929 wedding
context_page_description: A tailcoat is a knee-length coat characterised by a rear section of the skirt, known as the tails, with the front of the skirt cut away.
  The tailcoat shares its historical origins in clothes cut for convenient horse riding in the Early Modern era. Ever since the 18th century, however, tailcoats evolved into general forms of day and evening formal wear, in parallel to how the lounge suit succeeded the frock coat and the justacorps.
  Thus, in 21st-century Western dress codes for men, mainly two types of tailcoats have survived:
  Dress coat, an evening wear with a squarely cut away front, worn for formal white tie
  Morning coat, a day wear with a gradually tapered front cut away, worn for formal morning dress
  In colloquial language without further specification, "tailcoat" typically designates the former, that is the evening dress coat for white tie.
context_section_description: A morning coat is a single-breasted coat, with the front parts usually meeting at one button in the middle, and curving away gradually into a pair of tails behind, topped by two ornamental buttons on the waist seam. The lapels are usually pointed (American English peak), not step (notch), since the coat is now only worn as formalwear. When it was first introduced, the step lapel was common, since it was worn as half dress. The coat can be grey or black as part of morning dress, and is usually worn with striped, or very occasionally checked, trousers.
  The morning coat may also be worn as part of a morning suit, which is mid-grey with matching trousers and waistcoat.
  The modern morning coat (or cutaway in American English) is a man's coat worn as the principal item in morning dress. The name derives from morning nineteenth-century horseback riding exercise for gentlemen. It was regarded as an informal form of half dress. Gradually it became acceptable as an alternative to the frock coat for formal day wear or full dress. Since the nineteenth century it is normally only seen at weddings, at formal 
  baptisms, and in England and Australia, at races such as Royal Ascot, the Derby and the Victoria Derby where it is worn with a contrasting waistcoat, usually light grey or sometimes 'fancy'. It is very occasionally seen at funerals but more often it is used as day wear at formal luncheons, especially civic occasions under formal gowns, when worn with a black matching waistcoat (or 'vest'). Male members of the cabinet of Japan wear it in their first public appearance following the formation of the cabinet.
  The Marshal and Clerk of the United States Supreme Court wear morning coats when the justices are appearing in public wearing their traditional robes, for example when the court is in session, or when attending the President's State of the Union address. At one time all attorneys appearing before the court wore morning coats but they now wear standard business attire. The United States Solicitor General (when the office is held by a male) and his or her male deputies continue the tradition of wearing morning dress when arguing before the court.
  During the Victorian and Edwardian era, in the United States morning coat referred to a single-breasted frock coat, so the British then made fun of the fact that Americans were unable to distinguish between morning coats and frock coats. In modern American English, morning coats are referred to as cutaway coats.
caption: Two men wearing morning coats at a wedding. 1929.
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