Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. wealth, money; thus featherless adj., penniless; the inference being that someone will pluck v. (2) it.

1608		Dekker Belman of London H: The base Applesquire and his yong mistresse, laughing to see what a Woodcocke they puld, and sharing the feathers betweene them.
1632		D. Lupton London and the Countrey Carbonadoed 58: They many times do make a bargaine: Hee loues those birds best, that ofnest cast their Feathers: to conclude, he is no Tradesman [...] you shal not scarse finde a dramme of honesty, for a pound of craft.
1855		in J.P. Hambleton Biog. Sketch of Henry A. Wise 426: Sam and his wife [...] married each other for money, at first, or for ‘quills’ as they say. But alas! [...] they found each other perfectly featherless!!!
1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 13: The Cove has got Lots of Feathers in his Crib The man has plenty of money in his house.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter I 115: ‘He would be a deuced good fellow now — at least [...] as long as he has got any feathers, and would allow himself to be plucked’.
1890		Dunde Eve. Teleg. 3 Apr. 2/5: We may talk of our money in a score of ways [...] ‘the actual,’ ‘the wherewithal,’ ‘beans,’ ‘blunt,’ [...] ‘shot,’ ‘feathers’.

2. (US) fancy clothes; thus fine feathers.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 75: Feathers, Clothes are so called, mostly applied to the women, loosely. “If I warn’t going to church, nurse, I’d take and pull off every precious feather from Ma’am Bonish’s back.”.
1887		H. Caine Deemster I 20: How does the girl come by her fine feathers if her mother lives on charity?
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 69: He frankly confessed to me that he wasn’t living his own real life when he was wearing red neckties; he was trying to ‘fake the feathers of the main guys’ in the Upper World.
1905		Seattle Republican (WA) 3 Nov. 3/3: ‘Fine feathers make fine birds’ all right, but it is not boys who wear the ‘swellest’ clothes .
1915		Day Book (Chicago) 24 Feb. 24/2: Miss Mann’s merciless impersonation of Lilly Wagner, who pillories everything to her passion for fine feathers, roused a storm of hisses from a fashionable audience.
1922		Washington Herald (DC) 19 Nov. 1/1: Mme Hortense, the fashionable dress-maker, knows that fine feathers also make fine bank accounts — for her.
1953		S. Sterling ‘The Kiss and Tell Murders’ Popular Detective May 🌐 Get those feathers off, my pigeon. [...] Take your clothes off, my beautiful.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 91: Bloom’s Midnight Frolics Cafe was the flashiest drop in town. Here the high-toned Camilles came to parade their feathers and their loot.