Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (outer) clothing; also attrib.

1848		Boston Blade (Boston, MA) 10 June n.p.: I had on some of the fastest dry-goods you ever see in your life’.
1851		‘The Unclad Horseman’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 25: A ride over a dusty road is apt to soil a gentleman’s dry goods.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 22 Nov. n.p.: What was he doing to her when H.P.— saw him overhauling her dry goods .
1883		Sweet & Knox On a Mexican Mustang, Through Texas 269: They [...] are afraid to take off their warm dry-goods for fear of catching cold.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 274: The front walks and porches might have been Fifth-ave. on a Monday afternoon, from the dry-goods that was bein’ sported there.
1914		M. Glass Potash and Perlmutter 114: Milton Fiedler had served an arduous apprenticeship before he attained the position of branch manager for Gunst & Baumer in the drygoods district.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 140: We get up to her trap and she remove the dry goods.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 324: He pulled away. [...] ‘Release the dry goods!’.

2. (US black) a style of suit characterized by a long draped jacket with padded shoulders and high-waisted, tapering trousers.

1944

Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 254: dry-goods (n.): same as drape.