Must-have coats II: Dress Coats

A dress coat, sometimes called a swallow-tail or claw-hammer coat, is the coat that has, since the 1850s, come to be worn only in the evening by men as part of the white tie dress code, also known as evening full dress, for formal evening occasions. It is commonly referred to as just a tailcoat, but amongst tailors (both British and American) and dress historians it is traditionally called a dress coat to differentiate it from other types of tailcoats.