lapel

Lapel is a diminutive of lap, from Old English lappa (a flap, a fold, a hanging piece of cloth). The lap of your coat was the front panel. The lapel was the small fold where that panel turned back at the chest. The word appeared in English in the seventeenth century, precisely when coat designs began featuring turned-back fronts as a deliberate style choice rather than a practical fold.

Lapel width has been one of fashion's most volatile measurements. In the 1930s and 1940s, lapels were wide — four inches or more. In the 1960s, they narrowed dramatically as the Mod aesthetic took hold. The 1970s brought them back wide. The 1990s narrowed them again. Each generation rejected the previous one's lapel width with the conviction that their proportion was the correct one. It never was.

Lapel types carry specific social codes. The notch lapel (with a V-shaped cut where lapel meets collar) is standard business wear. The peak lapel (with upward-pointing tips) is more formal — traditionally found on double-breasted suits and tuxedos. The shawl lapel (a continuous roll with no notch) belongs to dinner jackets and smoking jackets. Wearing the wrong lapel to the wrong event is one of menswear's quieter social mistakes.

The lapel pin — a small decorative pin worn on the left lapel — has become a signaling device. Politicians wear flag pins. Wedding parties wear boutonnieres in the lapel buttonhole. Awareness ribbons are pinned to lapels. The small flap of fabric has become a bulletin board for identity, allegiance, and occasion. The diminutive of a flap carries more social weight than most full garments.