Definition
Wearing apparel refers to articles of clothing worn on the body. As a legal term of art appearing most frequently in statutes — particularly those governing exemptions from creditor process, customs and revenue law, estate administration, and the distribution of personal property — the phrase carries a scope that courts have repeatedly been called upon to define. The operative question in most legal contexts is whether a particular item falls within or outside the category, and the answer often turns on the specific statutory purpose.
As a general rule in statutory construction, wearing apparel encompasses not merely outer garments but all articles ordinarily worn on the person, including underclothing. Courts have extended the term to certain personal items customarily kept on the body, such as a watch, though this extension is not universal. Items such as traveling trunks, breastpins, and — under federal revenue law — shoes have been held to fall outside the definition.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Goods made of textiles and other materials worn as personal clothing, excluding accessories, home furnishings, and bed clothing.
The legal meaning of wearing apparel is broader than the common understanding in one important direction and narrower in another. Courts interpreting exemption statutes have extended the term to include items not made of textile at all — such as a gold watch worn on the person — while simultaneously excluding functional articles associated with dressing, such as shoes (under revenue law) and carrying cases. The legal definition is therefore not a fixed category but a context-sensitive judgment that varies by statute and jurisdiction.
Common Confusion
Wearing apparel is sometimes used interchangeably with clothing, garments, or apparel in ordinary drafting, but these terms do not share identical legal contours. Apparel, as a standalone term, has its own dictionary treatment and historical legal meaning; researchers should not assume that statutory or case law interpreting one term controls interpretation of the other. Anderson's Dictionary of Law cross-references this entry to APPAREL, signaling that the two are related but distinct.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research context for wearing apparel is statutory exemption law. Historically, state exemption statutes protecting a debtor's wearing apparel from execution or attachment were among the most commonly litigated exemption provisions, and the case law is scattered across nineteenth-century state reporters. The outer boundary of the term — does it include a watch? a breastpin? shoes? — was genuinely contested, and different states reached different conclusions on similar facts. Researchers working with exemption cases must read each jurisdiction's decisions independently; Bouvier's case citations illustrate how courts in Oregon, Georgia, Maine, and New Hampshire reached divergent outcomes on nearly identical questions.
Under federal revenue and customs law, the term was construed more narrowly. The exclusion of shoes from wearing apparel under revenue statutes (as noted in the federal reporter citation in Bouvier) reflects a principle that customs classifications do not import the broader equitable construction applied in debtor protection contexts. A researcher crossing between these bodies of law must be alert to this divergence.
In estate and probate contexts, wearing apparel historically appeared in statutes governing the widow's or family allowance — the portion of a decedent's personal property set aside before creditor claims attached. Here again the question of scope mattered practically, and the term was generally read expansively in favor of the surviving family.
The Anderson's Dictionary entry as reproduced in the source material appears to contain a textual anomaly — the entry as provided shifts mid-text into material concerning the constitutional powers of the Union, which is almost certainly a digitization or extraction error. Researchers relying on Anderson's for this term should consult the original print volume directly.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's is the more useful of the two historical sources for this term. The entry synthesizes the core judicial consensus — that wearing apparel in statutes means all articles usually worn, including underclothing — while honestly noting the judicial disagreement over items like watches and shoes. Bouvier presents this as a genuinely contested area rather than a settled rule, which accurately reflects the state of nineteenth-century authority.
The Anderson's entry as available through the Law Mind corpus is not usable for this term due to what appears to be a text extraction error. No substantive legal content specific to wearing apparel can be drawn from it as reproduced.
Neither historical dictionary addresses wearing apparel in the context of modern consumer protection, textile labeling regulation, or import/export classification schemes — areas where the phrase now also appears. Researchers working in those domains should treat the historical dictionary entries as background only.
Jurisdictional Note
State exemption statutes vary significantly in how they define or bound the wearing apparel exemption, and nineteenth-century case law from different states reached conflicting conclusions on identical items. Federal revenue and customs law applied a narrower construction than most state exemption law. No single definition travels across all jurisdictions.