Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. clothes, orig. cheap but latterly used irrespective of quality.

1959		C. MacInnes ‘Sharp Schmutter’ in England, Half Eng. (1960) 149: Let’s begin by describing schmutter a sharp kid wouldn’t be seen dead in.
1961		(con. c.1935) R. Poole London E1 (2012) 102: ‘Look at the state o’ that shirt — a schmutter’.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 15: His silver hair was an expensive wig and his mohair suit wasn’t shmutter either.
1978		Stage (London) 23 Mar. 6/2: She accentuates the fact by wearing what she calls her ‘Guatemalan schmutter’.
1980		(con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 19: Clothing is also ‘schmutter’, but this is chiefly reserved for up-to-the-minute, dressy stuff.
1999		Indep. on Sun. 21 Nov. 32: Their idea of a classy bit of schmutter is something that shows twelve hectares of cleavage, eight acres of thigh and is accompanied by make-up you could excavate.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 45: The other two are [...] in immaculately tailored suits. Wow! Cops in schmutter.
2016		Eve. Standard (London) 4 Apr. 34/3: The schmutter that mattered in the stylish Swinging Sixties.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 13: novak wears nanti schmutta except for a tag on his big toe. decomposition model’s own.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 351: ‘That schmutter... that’s exquisite’s clobber... no question’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1962		F. Norman Guntz 9: I got myself a job as a van driver with a saucepan lid in the shmuter trade.
1978		Stage (London) 23 Mar. 6/2: Frank, a schmutter salesman.
1999		in Indep. on Sun. Rev. 21 Feb. 6: I threaded my way between the fruit stalls and the schmutter shops.