clothing

See Also: CLOTHING ACCESSORIES; CLOTHING, ITS FIT

1. A little-girl-type sundress that was about as sexy as a paper bag —Dan Wakefield
2. All dressed up like Christmas trees —Rosamund Pilcher
3. A baggy blue flowered housedress that looked like old slipcovers —Louise Erdrich
4. A bikini is like a barbed-wire fence. It protects the property without obstructing the view —Joey Adams
5. Blouses thin as the film of tears in your eyes —Bin Ramke
6. Clothes, pressed stiff as cardboard —Jay Parini
7. Coat like a discarded doormat —T. Coraghessan Boyle
8. A dark blue suit so rigidly correct that it looked like a uniform —Harvey Swados
9. Draped in a muumuu that covered her like a Christo curtain shrouding a California mountain —Paul Kuttner
10. Dressed all in brown, like a rabbit —Anon
11. Dressed as if she were going to a coronation —Shelby Hearon
12. Dressed in black jersey, without ornament, like a widow —Ross Macdonald
13. Dressed like a bookie —Gavin Lyall
14. Dressed like a Hollywood bit player hoping to be discovered leaning on a bar —Robert Campbell

    In his novel, In La-La Land We Trust, Campbell expands upon this simile for several sentences with details about the outfit.

15. Dressed up like a dog’s dinner —American colloquialism

    This means to be overdressed, usually badly so.

16. Dresses conservatively as a corpse —Harvey Swados
17. (The Queen) dresses like a whistlestop town librarian —Stephen Longstreet
18. Dresses like he’s got a charge at Woolworth’s —Robert B. Parker

    With names of stores, companies and products constantly changing, Woolworth’s may not always be synonymous with cheap; however, the simile could live on with an appropriate substitution.

19. Dress … gone limp in the heat, like a wilted plant —Louise Erdrich
20. A dress like ice-water —F. Scott Fitzgerald
21. Dress that was as small as scarf —Laurie Colwin
22. Fancy as a rooster up for the fair —Linda Hogan
23. Garments as weathered as an old sail —George Eliot
24. A girl who dressed like an Arabian bazaar —T. Coraghessan Boyle
25. Her white silk robe flowed over her like a milk shower —Harold Adams
26. He was dressed for this death-watch job [hotel desk clerk] as if for a lively party —Christopher Isherwood
27. In her orange fringed poncho she looked like a large teepee —Michael Malone
28. Ladies wrapped like mummies in shawls with bright flowers on them —Virginia Woolf
29. Like her husband she carried clothes, carried them as a train carries passengers —Henry James
30. Looks like she’s wearing her entire wardrobe all at once and all of it hand-me-downs from someone bigger than she is —Julie Salamon, describing appearance of character played by Debra Winger in the movie, Black Widow, Wall Street Journal, February 6, 1987
31. A party frock sticking out all around her [a little girl’s] legs like a lampshade —Joyce Cary
32. Peeled off his trousers like shucking corn —Rita Mae Brown
33. Ragged as a scarecrow —Thomas Heywood
34. Shirt [heavily patched] lays on his body like a ratty dishtowel —Carolyn Chute
35. Skirts swirling like a child’s pennant caught in a stiff breeze —Tony Ardizzone
36. Slickers [worn by cops] that shone like gun barrels —Raymond Chandler

    Raymond Chandler used this simile in his early days as a pulp magazine writer, (Killer in the Rain, Black Mask Magazine, 1935) and later in his novel, The Big Sleep.

37. Starched clothes sat in the grass like white enameled teapots —Isaac Babel
38. [Formal attire] suited them the way an apron suits a grizzly bear —William Mcllvanney
39. Sweater as sopped as wet sheep —Susan Minot
40. Tailored and bejeweled like a pampered gigolo —James Mills
41. Tightly wrapped in a red skirt like a Christmas present —Helen Hudson
42. Trousers pressed as sleek as a show dog’s flank —R. V. Cassill
43. A wedding gown like a silver cloud —Mazo De La Roche
44. A white robe, flowing, like spilled milk —Paige Mitchell
45. Wide sleeves fluttering like wings —Marcel Proust
46. Wore his clothes as if they were an official uniform —Vernon Scannell
47. You wear your clothes as if you want to be helped out of them —W. P. Kinsella
48. Zipped and buttoned into a polyester pantsuit, she was like a Christmas stocking half-filled with fruit —Mary Ward Brown

best bib and tucker Finery; Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes; glad rags. Though now applied to the dress of either sex, the phrase originally and properly described only that of women. Both items of clothing—bibs and tuckers—were lacy and frilly affairs worn about the bodice and neck in the 17th and 18th centuries.

brothel-creepers British slang for crepe-soled suede shoes. Such shoes were long associated in England with pimps, who were often seen to wear them. The term appeared in G. Smith’s Flaw in Crystal in 1954:

glad rags One’s best or finest clothes; fancy or dressy clothes, especially formal evening dress; also glad clothes and glads. This self-evident American slang term has been in use since 1902. An equivalent but as yet unestablished slang term is heavy threads.

highwaters Unfashionably short trousers or slacks. This expression is derived from the humorous inference that one wearing blatantly short pants must be expecting a flood. Application of this phrase is obviously contingent upon the mandates of the fashion world.

monkey suit Formal clothes; a tuxedo; the full dress uniform of a serviceman, police officer, etc. This expression may be a modification of monkey jacket, a close-fitting coat formerly worn by sailors and similar in appearance to the stiff jacket worn by an organ-grinder’s monkey. The phrase maintains some contemporary usage.

soup-and-fish A man’s formal clothing; a cutaway; white tie and tails. This term came to be jocularly applied to formal dress because soup and fish were so often served as the first courses of a formal dinner.

Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes One’s best or finest clothes; also Sunday clothes, Sunday best, and Sunday-go-to-meetings. The term, in use since 1831, is an expansion of Sunday clothes, and refers to the days when most people wore their finery only on Sunday, which was reserved for churchgoing and visiting.