lapel, a universal consideration of frock coats and dress coats of the period, but abandoned in favor of the current single-piece lapels at the same time as the switch to morning coats and lounge suits. Modern lapels are largely identical in form to their 1930s counterparts.

Some historians of dress such as Bernard Rudofsky have ridiculed the evolution of jacket lapels into "vastly unnecessary flaps" and "decorative rudiments", while others have celebrated the transformation of lapels into "fetishes"