The London Lounge

Gentleman,

I was wondering whether the bottom of a morning coat should line up with the back of the knee or should it be higher or lower?
What would you assume to be perfect?
My height is 1.84 m which is about 6 ft.

Thank you in advance

Mine lines up roughly with the centre of the knee.

May I hazzard a warning, though. The very fact you are asking suggests you may be using a tailor who does not often cut morning dress. It is hellishly difficult to cut the line of the tails to achieve a truly elegant effect, and the relation between trousers and coat is rather important. Remember that there are no front pockets, so the visual balance is very different. The back consists of four pieces of cloth across the shoulder blades rather than the two on a normal coat. There are a few Savile Row firms whose senior cutters have sufficient experience, and who have access to coatmakers used to morning dress.

If you wish to use somebody who has not done it before (or not often), make sure you have the time (and the tailor is willing) to go slowly with plenty of fittings and room for adjustment.

The best illustration of the essence of what morning dress should look like I saw on the illustrated dustjacket of one of the P G Wodehouse novels from the twenties or thirties. I believe it was the UK edition, the US dustjacket was different.

TVD wrote:Mine lines up roughly with the centre of the knee.

May I hazzard a warning, though. The very fact you are asking suggests you may be using a tailor who does not often cut morning dress. It is hellishly difficult to cut the line of the tails to achieve a truly elegant effect, and the relation between trousers and coat is rather important. Remember that there are no front pockets, so the visual balance is very different. The back consists of four pieces of cloth across the shoulder blades rather than the two on a normal coat. There are a few Savile Row firms whose senior cutters have sufficient experience, and who have access to coatmakers used to morning dress.

If you wish to use somebody who has not done it before (or not often), make sure you have the time (and the tailor is willing) to go slowly with plenty of fittings and room for adjustment.

The best illustration of the essence of what morning dress should look like I saw on the illustrated dustjacket of one of the P G Wodehouse novels from the twenties or thirties. I believe it was the UK edition, the US dustjacket was different.

Excellent advice.

All good advice. However, I would go even further than TVD and strongly recommend against using a tailor who has never made a morning coat before. As he explains, it's a very specialized garment to make and you really need to find someone who knows what he is doing. Even a very skilled tailor may have trouble with it if he hasn't done one before.

As to the length, it should fall to the back of the knee.

TVD, Trilby,

thank you very much for the advice.