What apparel should I be using on my stealth melee character?

I'd say any of the layered armor modified to be shadowed, muffled, and ultra-light. I personally use leather with a mix of combat with those said modifications.

One piece chameleon, the rest muffled and shadowed.

i use wanderers chestpiece, raider left arm, raider right leg and ballistic weave army fatigues.

I've never found a satisfactory answer this question ---- is there any point in getting muffled when you have the Sneak perk that lets you run silently? Does it just knock the "running" noise you generate down to the "walking" noise, which can still further be reduced by Muffled? I've noticed some foes are oblivious to me and others (Supermutants) seem to twig to my presence even when I am creeping slowly with muffled pieces of armor.

And given a choice of Shadowed or Muffled, which do you pick? Presumably you only need one Chameleon effect, but it's (apparently) not enough on its own to make you undetectable. I suppose it boils down to a trial and error situation---- if you keep getting detected, put in more Shadowed / Muffled, and if you NEVER get detected, you can afford to bump up from shadowed leather to Combat Armor, etc

Before I cheat-modded myself to be able to carry 10,000 lbs (no more worries about hauling Settlement junk around ), I had Deep Pockets mods on everything (no Strong Back perk, due to my low STR).... so I could not afford to use Muffled or Shadowed. Without encumbrance as an issue, though, they come into play again as options.

It is really hard to say without any hard numbers.. I had my stealth maxed, agility is at 11, but noticed no difference with that last stealth perk... crouching to lose enemies seemed to have no effect. I had all the stealth magazines, shadowed, muffled armor and I didn't notice any difference if I removed my armor.. Stealthy actions also seemed to be random in some interior locations. There were some places where enemies would spot me at great distances without even being in eye sight. (Pickman's Gallery is a great example.) In other places I could plant grenades on enemies and tip toe away without them becoming aware.

Shadowed (leather arms), Muffled (leather/synth legs), and Chameleon (any chest).

Saw a you tube video that claimed multiple pieces of chameleon gear stack making you less detectable to the point you sneak around at close range and in daylight, virtually undetectable. So if that is true (and it sure looked as though it was in the video), and you want to go the ultra OP no one can see you route (ala Oblivion, Fallout 3) go with that.

- Harness + Chameleon

- Synth Uniform + Chameleon

I'm not into sneaky sneaky type, but I use them because I don't like bulky looking and Chameleon effect is badass.