Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also clabber, klobber) clothes, esp. good quality or conspicuous clothes; thus clobbered adj., well-dressed; clobberer n., one who mends old clothes.

1865		Hobart Mercury (Tas.) 8 Feb. 3/4: Those [old clothes] that are intended to remain in this country have to be tutored and transformed. The ‘clobberer,’ the ‘reviver,’ and the ‘translator’ lay hands upon them. The duty of the ‘clobberer’ is to patch to sew up, and to restore as far as possible the garments to their pristine appearance.
1877		A. Smith Street Life in London (1969) 62: A coat [...] after it has been well worn, comes into the hands of an individual known in technical parlance as the ‘clobberer.’ This person is a master in the art of patching.
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 501: The next day I took the rattler to Forest Hill and touched for (succeeded in getting) some wedge and a kipsy full of clobber (clothes).
1885		Referee 17 May in Ware (1909) 80/1: I fancy any Kitty [...] on the sudden return of master in the midst of unlawful revelry, would have taken some pains to cover up the resplendent and unaccustomed ‘klobber’ [...] donned for the occasion.
1892		Kipling ‘Loot’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 171: W’y, they call a man a robber if ’e stuffs ’is marchin’ clobber / With the — / Loo! loo! Lulu! lulu! Loo! loo! Loot!
1895		Herald (Melbourne) 27 Aug. 2/7: They [i.e. pickpockets] preferred dresses, which were easier to work up on than on men’s clobber (clothes).
1897		Clipper (Hobart, Tas.) 1 May 6/2: Got no furniture to speak of, / Scarcely got no clobber too .
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 24 Jan. 1/1: The cast-off clobber is ear-marked for a coming corroboree.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 19 May 4/8: On Wensdee when I’m clobbered up an’ free / She’s sellin’ things at two-and-six a pair.
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 134: There’s a lot of satisfaction in noo clobber.
1912		Truth (Wellington) 6 Apr. 6/5: A ginger-headed young man in a flash suit of clobber.
1917		A.G. Empey Over the Top 89: From here we went into the room where we had first undressed. Ten minutes was allowed in which to get into our ‘clabber.’.
1918		Butterfly and Firefly 23 Nov. 1: ‘Come on,’ he chortled, ‘and get into the clobber!’.
1922		H. Lawson ‘Bob the Baker and British Breeding’ in Roderick (1972) 924: I got some decent clobber and made up my mind to work my passage home.
1923		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 11 Aug. 15/4: He was well clobbered an' wore a slang big enough to tow the Makura, with a locket like a meat safe ’anging to it.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 69: His wild face flushed with health and his clobber as sausage-skin-like as ever.
1933		C. Drew ‘Gorilla Grogan’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 26 July 40/4: Gents in clobber that dated back four seasons filled the ringside seats.
1942		Whizzbang Comics 66: And twenty miles is a bit of a swim – specially for a bloke who’s got all his clobber on.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 89: I’ll give you a right monkey for all the good stuff, that’s the clobber, an’ the cases.
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 105: When a ducktail or a ‘joller’ says he is putting on his ‘clobber’ he means that he is getting dressed.
1964		P. Larkin ‘Self’s the Man’ in Whitsun Weddings 24: To pay for the kiddies’ clobber and the drier.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 24: You won’t need more clobber [...] than you can fit into one dilly bag.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 64: Dressed in the kind of clobber I’d been flogging all day.
1985		A. Payne ‘Minder on the Orient Express’ Minder [TV script] 110: You seen that old bloke by any chance? With the antique clobber?
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 222: Within a matter of minutes Warren [...] got changed into his best clobber.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 102: I went [...] to change into my stage clobber.
1999		Observer Mag. 5 Sept. 35: Decked out in ski jumpers, suede jackets and neo-mod clobber.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 38: Get him some clobber, you little puff.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 74: Some guys can wear formal clobber, and these guys can’t.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘They’re either ex-detectives, sent back to uniform, or they were Ds in borrowed clobber’.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 33: ‘Nice clobber, mate’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 205: [G]arbed in period clobber.

2. (UK Und.) ? a shirt.

1893

P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 49: A tall man appeared, with [...] a bird’s eye tie, a white clobber, a black waistcoat, a light-coloured overcoat and a tall white hat.

3. things.

1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 281: Give this bloke his grub and get him his clobber.
1960		H. Pinter Caretaker Act III: All this junk here, it’s no good to anyone. It’s just a lot of old iron, that’s all. Clobber.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 93: ‘Oh, God, what do we do with all this clobber?’ The sight of the stack of new televisions, the radios, the crates of cigarettes and whisky alarmed her.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 187: What a fucking surprise he would get. He would jump twenty feet, notebooks and clobber.