Overcoat facts for kids

Double-breasted coat, 1876

An overcoat is a long coat which is worn over other clothes. Overcoats are made from a warm, heavy cloth or even animal fur. They go below the knee in length. A coat that is knee length is known as a topcoat. Overcoats have been worn for hundreds of years. Many armies dressed their soldiers in overcoats during the winter.

Examples of overcoats

Some of the most common historical overcoats, in roughly chronological order.

Image	Description
	The Greatcoat, a voluminous overcoat with multiple shoulder capes, prominently featured by European militaries, most notably the former Soviet Union.
	The Redingote (via French from English riding coat), a long fitted coat for men or women.
	The Frock overcoat, a very formal daytime overcoat commonly worn with a frock coat, featuring a waist seam and heavy waist suppression.
	The Ulster coat, a working daytime overcoat initially with a cape top covering sleeves, but then without; it evolved to the polo coat after losing its cape.
	The Inverness coat, a formal evening or working day overcoat, with winged sleeves.
	The Paletot coat, a coat shaped with side-bodies, as a slightly less formal alternative to the frock overcoat.
	The Paddock coat, with even less shaping.
	The Chesterfield coat, a long overcoat with very little waist suppression; being the equivalent of the "sack suit" for clothes, it came to be the most important overcoat of the next half-century.
	The Covert coat, a classically brown/fawn, straight cut, single breasted country coat that became accepted for wear in the city with a suit as well as with tweed. It has a signature four lines of stitching at the cuffs and hem. It also had a fly front closure and 2 side pockets. The collar is sometimes made of velvet.
	The British Warm, a taupe, slightly shaped, double-breasted, greatcoat, made of Melton, a heavy wool fabric, was first designed for British officers during the First World War, but was made famous by Churchill. The civilian variant usually drops the epaulettes.

Images for kids

• 

  Overcoat (left) and topcoat (right) from The Gazette of Fashion, 1872

• 

  Napoleon, mounted, campaigning in France in 1814, wearing a grey overcoat, by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier.

See also

In Spanish: Capote (indumentaria) para niños