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Per the interest and request of a loyal reader, who has an interest in the rules of accessories and accessorising, I’m republishing the third and final installment of the series on formal dress.

As promised, after much research, here is a brief overview of accessories for formal dress.

The cravat originated in the 1600s as a unisex article of clothing. In its original form, the cravat was a plain white length of cloth. Wealthy people might have a little lace trim on theirs and theirs might be starched so that it held its shape. Otherwise, it was a piece of clothing worn by all classes. For men, it protected the neck from sword cuts. It served as a scarf and a bib for both men and women who found it more comfortable than the neck ruff which it replaced.

In the 1720s, women discarded the cravat as styles shifted and low necklines came into vogue. Over the eighteenth century, men's cravats became less and less utilitarian until they were the decorative confections of lace associated with ancien régime France.

In a formal setting, the cravat is paired with a wing collar, so of necessity it must stay outside the shirtfront. However, there are two ways to tie it under those circumstances.

The ‘popular’ knot is a newer invention. It is basically a four--in-hand lounge tie knot used on a cravat. While the popular knot isn't incorrect per se, it isn't as formal as the traditional knot, which is basically a barrel knot. The traditional knot normally requires a tie pin to keep the two ends from separating. A traditional knot will also cause the ends to cover more of the shirtfront, which is in keeping with the cravat's origins as a bib.

Cravats meant to be worn informally or with a popular knot tend to be made of 100% silk for comfort, while ones intended to be worn the traditional way will be made of a blend of silk and a stiffer fiber so that the tie holds its shape all day.

Cravats may be fastened with tie pins or tie tacks, never with a tie clip. Tie clips are for lounge ties, which by extension means they aren't for formal events. Tie clips are also rather nouveau riche as they date to the 1930s, when lounge ties began to be made of synthetic fibers that shredded if a hole was made in them. Therefore, they were associated with lower quality fabrics and clothing. Lounge ties are not appropriate to wear with formal dress, unless one is a servant. In the Victorian and Edwardian eras, upper servants would wear clothes modeled on those of their employers, so styling and pairing of accessories was an important way of providing immediate visual clues as to who was who.

Both men are wearing semi-formal day dress, the stroller suit. Most of them time in the series, color is a distinguishing characteristic as the servants wear black or dark green, the Crawley family's livery colors, but it would be perfectly correct for Robert Grantham to wear a black stroller suit if, for example, he was in mourning. He does (spoiler alert) in the third season when the family goes into mourning for the youngest daughter. So the true point of distinction is that the butler wears a lounge tie with his suit while the earl wears a cravat. What I tell people when I'm advising on production design or helping people dress for day time formal events is that formality and authority are inversely proportional to amount of visible shirtfront. That's not an actual sartorial rule, but it helps people understand the visual difference between the two.

Do not show braces! Doing so is the male equivalent of a woman showing her brassière straps. Everyone in this picture should be arrested for public indecency! The only thing worse is an actual underwear hem to be visible. Incidentally, I witnessed an episode where a young man was walking around his Oxford college with his braces showing and another student made him put his jacket on. Technically, braces  are not an accessory with formal dress since they aren't optional. They are the only way of keeping one's trousers up — though as Debrett's points out, trousers should be well-fitting enough that they can stay up by themselves — since morning suit or evening dress trousers won't have belt loops. With black-tie, or dinner dress, trousers may have belt loops, but it is incorrect to wear both belt and braces, or as Debrett's puts it ‘you can if you've taken leave of your senses’.

Belts aren't entirely appropriate for men even in informal wear. As Debrett's says

Belts should never be worn with suits. They will give the appearance of cutting you in half, ruining both the lines of the suit and your appearance. They also give people the impression that your trousers don't fit properly, which is hardly the sort of statement you'd wish to make.

Obviously the rules are different for women who can wear belts as decorative items. As with men, women's belts should not be used for holding garments up.

‘Where to put one's things?’ is one of the most pressing questions for formal dress, day or evening. This is one area where women have an easier time than men: women can carry a clutch, though nothing bigger than a clutch. Clutches are statement pieces in their own right, though they should complement the outfit and shouldn't be garish merely for the sake of shock. I always advise classic patterns or colors and preferably a vintage article. Louis Vuitton's Hello Kitty bag line is out.

Men can carry a wallet, provided it is slim and unobtrusive. Wallets, by the way, do not belong in back pants pockets. If a wallet can't fit in the interior pocket of a dinner jacket or tail coat, the owner needs to find a new wallet, remove objects from his current one, or find a way to not carry anything at all. A male friend informs me that three-fold wallets are the problem. According to him, they're too thick. High-quality leather duo-folds without inserts are what to carry, he says. He also points out that for a formal event, a man's wallet shouldn't have anything more than ID card, perhaps one credit card, and enough bills for tips if culturally appropriate. No coins, no cash wad, no unnecessary plastic. There's a practical reason I didn't even think of: extra weight is hard on a jacket's fabric and over time can cause it to stretch which in turn could cause unsightly bumps or wrinkles, as well as potentially causing the jacket to hang awkwardly.

Men aren't supposed to wear jewelry as part of formal dress, excluding wedding or signet rings, tie pins, and cufflinks. Cufflinks aren't really accessories if the dress code is morning dress or white tie as shirt sleeves won't have buttons at all. So the only way to keep cuffs closed is with cufflinks. If the dress code is black tie in the evening or stroller suits during the day, then it is acceptable to wear a shirt with button-closures on the cuffs.

Allowed individualistic branding are military or institutional affiliation cufflinks. These, in turn, can be a bit of a minefield. The rules on military cufflinks vary nation to nation, and even regiment to regiment. I'm aware that some militaries view wearing regimental cufflinks as offensive if the wearer didn't serve himself, even if he inherited them from someone who did. Institutional cufflinks are meant to be worn only be people who attended the institution. There's no way of enforcing that, though.

School ties are operate on the same honor system, yet barrister Gary Bell, originally from the Nottingham slums, recounted in his memoir Animal, QC that he bought an Eton tie from their gift shop and started wearing it as part of promoting himself as an old Etonian. (It wasn't out of dishonesty; he had some university friends who were old Etonians and they thought it'd be fun to do a Harry Higgins on Bell.)

In the US, institutional affiliation extends to parents and children of the attender, as part of the infamous legacy system. In reality, the legacy system isn't the horror the media cracks it up to be. To claim legacy standing, a family has to send a child or grandchild once every three generations, or they lose their place. I've been reliably informed, as well, by people who work in Ivy League admissions that legacy standing only means that if they have two candidates with equally strong CVs, academic performances, writing samples, and essays, then they choose the person with prior connections. One of my contacts said that in almost two decades, she could count on one hand the number of times that legacy was the deciding factor. In terms of formal dress, I'm not sure that familial extension applies to British or European institutions when it comes to wearing branded items.

Shirt studs, like cufflinks, are less accessories for white tie and more necessities. Full dress shirts don't have buttons, so shirt studs are the only way to close the front. As with cufflinks, shirt studs are not an opportunity for a man to be cute or showy. They should be discreet and match the fabric of his shirt. While they can be made of gemstones or precious metals, if they are so large and gaudy as to look like a man has tacked women's earrings onto his shirtfront, the studs are wrong. Traditional mother of pearl studs are always a safe bet. Shirt studs aren't meant to draw the eye to the shirtfront, lest the viewer remember that a shirt can be unfastened, similar to the way braces are hidden so that viewers don't remember that trousers can come down.

For women, jewels are required accessories with evening dress, but not with morning dress. There are few rules related to women's jewels, outside of that diamonds are for evening, unless there is a state occasion, which would then require diamonds as they are the most formal of jewels. Obviously, wedding and engagement rings are exceptions. There used to be a rule that women were not to wear diamonds, especially diamond rings, until they married, but this seems to have fallen by the wayside. There are some style traditions, e.g. necklaces go with lower necklines, no bracelets if wearing long evening gloves, massive hoop earrings aren't appropriate. Otherwise, choice of jewels and types is up to individual women.

The Cartier’s classic tank watch is customarily a ‘dress’ watch. Yet, when the tank watch first appeared in 1917, watches weren't supposed to be worn with formal dress at all. The relaxation of dress codes to allow men to wear watches with formal dress came from the needs of a militarised society; men needed to know when they had to return to their bases or posts. Therefore a new hierarchy evolved which decreed a pocket watch was more formal than a wristwatch. Since the end of World War I, men and women can wear watches with morning dress. That said, for the most formal daytime events, such as Royal Ascot, it's not encouraged for women to wear watches, though dress codes do allow it. Women aren't supposed to wear watches at all with evening dress. Men can wear watches with black tie but not with white tie.

Although men can wear watches with black tie, it is still borderline rude, as a watch suggests the man is not paying attention to his guests, if he is the host, or his host, if he is the guest. However, as time awareness is a necessity of life, The Gentleman’s Gazette has some useful tips to mitigate the rudeness. Here are a few of their recommendations:

1. Carry a pocket watch instead of wearing a wristwatch if possible. 

2. Roman numerals are more formal than standard numbers.

3. Wear a wristwatch on the left wrist so that it doesn’t show when shaking hands.

4. A formal wristwatch should be small and unobtrusive — no glowing faces, no gaudy finishes, and NO alarm noises.

The Gentleman’s Gazette also has a page on finding a good dress watch for daytime wear. The page has good information, though I personally think the author skirted a little too close to confusing cost with taste in a couple of the example watches shown.

Happy Sunday!

MLD

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This issue is the second of a three-part series I wrote on formal dress codes. As I was still publishing on Ghost when I wrote this piece, new subscribers will probably not have had a chance to read it.

Continuing the recommendation from a loyal reader to review formal dress codes as part of the holiday season, I’m republishing this issue on formal dress codes for evening events.

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The first and most fundamental rule to know about evening formal wear is that Hollywood always gets everything wrong. Time of day, occasion, accessories, even cut or style will almost invariably be wrong if evening dress is shown in a movie or tv show. To further observe in the picture above: the men's trousers are wrong: pant legs, male or female, should not bunch around the feet – because they shouldn't drag in any mud the wearer might encounter.

With formal wear, women can get away with wearing higher heeled shoes to accommodate their trousers (yes, it is permitted for women to wear long dress trousers for evening events), but men must have their trousers shortened if necessary. A useful rule is that the bottom of a man's trousers should just cover topline of a man's formal shoe when he is standing.    

The Swedish royal family, friends, and courtiers in the above photo appear to be wearing evening dress at a daytime event, but they aren't. Their clothes are formal dress for the Swedish court. Photos like these are probably the inspiration for Hollywood costume designers who look at them and then get the wrong end of the stick. If you read my previous issue on daytime morning wear, you'll know that the Swedish court's clothes are a variant of morning dress.

As a member of college, I'm required to wear a postgraduate gown over my dress for any events at St Hilda's. If I'm a guest at another college, I'm not required to wear my academic dress, though it is preferred that members of the university do. As my guest, my friend didn't wear a gown. Events after 6:00 PM are usually black tie. Occasionally there are white tie events, such as balls.

Black tie is informal evening wear. For a man, he only needs black trousers, shoes, a white shirt, a black bow tie, and a dinner jacket. A cummerbund isn't necessary. The cummerbund originated in Victorian England, but it has since fallen out of favor and is now associated with American tuxedos, which, by the way, should never be called a "tux." Outside of the cummerbund, there's no difference between a tuxedo and dinner dress/black tie. It's just the name.

A woman can wear whatever she likes for black tie within reason. The only restriction is that if she wears a skirt or dress, it should come at least just above the knee. Black tie events are semi-formal, so she shouldn't look like she's going clubbing. She doesn't have to wear black. There's a lot of confusion on this one when girls first arrive at Oxford. She can wear colorful dresses or tops, but not a hat (unless she's military and in uniform); hats are for daytime events. The term black tie is based solely on the tie color a man has to wear.

White tie means evening dress. For a man, this means black trousers, shoes, white waistcoat, shirt, shirtfront, studs, cufflinks, and of course a white bow tie. For a woman, the rules are floor-length dress, ideally in a silhouette-flattering cut. She does not have to wear high-heels, though it is customary. If she wears a sleeveless dress, she is supposed to wear evening gloves, as Michelle Obama correctly demonstrates in the photo below.      

The Queen appears to have worn shorter length gloves since her dress had sleeves. A rule of white tie is that all married women, regardless of rank, are supposed to wear a tiara in the presence of royalty. The first ladies of democratic countries are exempt from this rule since there is awareness that if a first lady wears a tiara, doing so can be mistaken for her wearing a crown. In a rare instance, Hollywood did get this rule right in The Big Bang Theory show finale when Mayim Bialek's character, Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler-Cooper, wore a tiara to receive the Nobel Prize.

Events involving royalty are supposed to be exclusively white tie. The British royal family has made an exception after World War II of allowing events involving them to be black tie. Lady Colin Campbell dedicated an entire episode on her YouTube show to explaining the history of the change. What happened was that Queen Mary, the current queen's grandmother, bought the Romanov family jewels when the Russian cousins arrived in Britain as refugees. It was a way of helping them without giving them a handout. However, this meant that the Romanov cousins didn't have the right accessories for the court events they were invited to attend as members of the extended family. The solution was to work out a compromise: the Romanov cousins can borrow the jewels when they need them, and British court events are black tie affairs by special dispensation. Obviously, state events, such as the Obama visit to the UK, continue to be white-tie.

Normally as part of white tie accoutrement, tiaras are evening dress. However, for royal weddings, they are worn by the bride during the day as part of the symbolism of marriage. Only the bride wears a tiara, of course. It would be most incorrect for any other woman, even the queen, to show up wearing a tiara. Naturally, Hollywood got that rule wrong by having Mayim Bialek's character wear her tiara to her friend's wedding:

Evening wear is much more restrictive for men than for women. They are not supposed to wear colors of any sort. So Howard's colored bow tie and waistcoat are wrong! At private semi-formal events, such as club dinners, there is tolerance for colorful ties or waistcoats. Indeed, I've helped friends pick out colorful bow ties, but skirting the rules like that is for private events only. I would never recommend wearing a colorful bow tie for any event, such as formal hall, where a person might be accused of being ignorant of the rules.

Blue bow tie and cummerbund? Not appropriate! The reason is that evening wear is supposed to be about the women, their dresses, and their jewels. Men are merely supposed to be the backdrop against which the women are seen. So, Sally Field (?) dropped the ball by not wearing something which was colorful and the man in the blue bow tie committed a faux pas by wearing something which took viewers' eyes off her!

There is one prohibition women have to honor for evening dress: only wear ballgowns to balls. The difference between the two dresses appeared only after the French Revolution. Prior to that there was court dress, which varied court to court.

The most obvious difference between the two dresses is the skirt. Ballgowns have full skirts for swirling around on a dance floor. The evening dress' long, simple skirt makes it appropriate (and comfortable) for any evening event or space. The fitted bodice is part of the components of a ballgown but can also be part of an evening dress.

(The young man in focus isn't improperly dressed. He's given his coat to the second woman behind him.) Balls are white tie events. So when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited the Intrepid Museum in New York in 2021, they were not on the same page:

The duke is wearing black tie, yet the duchess is in a ballgown. The other attendees wore black tie, so the event was black tie. Therefore, a ballgown wasn't appropriate. The rule is that a woman may choose to wear an evening dress when she could wear a ballgown; she may not wear a ballgown when she's supposed to wear an evening dress.

Evening wear funny story: Once, back in high school, my sister was in an all-girl chamber ensemble whose coach tried to convince them that wearing white tie  – shirt, shirt front, white bow tie, and tailcoat – on top and a black skirt on the bottom would be "classy." The suggestion was so bad that even a pack of high school girls didn't buy it.

Happy Sunday!

MLD

P.S.

Happy Sunday!

MLD

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November 2025 update: I’ve dragged this piece out of the archives at the suggestion of a loyal reader who expressed interest in the etiquette around formal dress. The topic is apropos to the holiday season since this is a time of year when many people have formal events that aren’t held the rest of the year.

Here I am in my half blue blazer. To obtain one, aside from winning a half blue, one must go to Walter's of Oxford, be fitted for it, and then wait six weeks. Their customer service is lovely, though, and they make the experience delightful. Absolutely no one knows where the blazer came from, but there are three plausible stories: 1) in the 1820s, the Lady Margaret rowing team at St John's College, Cambridge, wanted an informal jacket for warmth and comfort while training; 2) in 1837, the captain of HMS Blazer dressed his crew in striped jackets in preparation for receiving a young Queen Victoria; 3) they evolved from jackets worn by members of private clubs in the mid-nineteenth century. The blazer is the lowest rung of informality officially allowed by the university.

A blazer is more formal than a sport coat, but not as formal as a lounge suit, which is still informal daywear. It may be a surprise to some readers that the lounge suit, i.e. a two- or three-piece suit, is classified as informal dress. As such, it is not appropriate to wear to formal events during the day. There are a few exceptions, one of which is Oxford University academic events where gowns can be worn over lounge suits. This is because the academic gown, already held as formalwear, is considered the top layer – at such events gowns are never removed – and therefore a person isn't supposed to wear anything that could pull attention away from the gown.

In general, formalwear is divisible into morning dress – appropriate from rising until about 6:00 PM – and evening dress, to be worn from 6:00 PM until dawn. Each of these has subdivisions. When one says morning dress, one normally means a morning suit.

A morning suit comprises trousers, shirt, tie (in the most formal of circumstances only a cravat is allowed as the tie), waistcoat, tailcoat, black shoes, and top hat. The top hat is increasingly dispensed with but the rule is: top hat or no hat at all. It used to be that men regardless of age would also carry a walking stick. That is now dispensed with except for events such as Royal Ascot, where the stick serves a practical function – a man is supposed to use his stick to tap discreetly ahead of where he is walking to avoid stepping in mud. Dispensing with walking sticks at events is partly cost efficient, but it also because the walking stick is analogous to a sword from back in the days, e.g. ancien régime France, when men, regardless of rank, were expected to wear a sword as part of formal dress. As a result, men would not carry a walking stick into a sacred place, such as a church or synagogue, because of the rule against bearing arms into those places. (Obviously walking sticks are distinct from canes in this context.) This is one reason why one doesn't see men carrying walking sticks at royal weddings, which is where the general public customarily sees morning dress.

Morning suits have some aesthetic or social rules governing pairings and presentation. Morning coats come in dark blue, black, charcoal grey, or light grey. The light grey colour is only for warm months. The UK doesn't have the US's easy rule of ‘dark after Labor Day, light after Easter’. But there's about an equivalent time period: normally light coloured jackets from April through September, but dark coloured ones from October through March. While it is correct to wear either a wing- or turn-down collar as part of a morning suit, if a person chooses a wing-collar, then he may only wear a dark tailcoat, not a light grey one. The turn-down collar goes with either dark or light colours.

The waistcoat and coat are a set in the sense that the waistcoat should be visible above and below the tailcoat when it is fastened, but too much or too little of the waistcoat is a faux pas. The waistcoat must cover the waistband. It's customary for men to wear suspenders, rather than belts as part of morning dress. Most morning suit trousers won't have belt loops. I'll double back to this in an issue about formalwear accessories, but it is extremely gauche for a man's suspenders (UK: braces) to be visible. They are classified as undergarments and as such are held to the same rule: no showing!

Black shoes are required even if the suit coat is dark blue. This is because of the old rule ‘never wear brown in town’. As a clothing colour, brown is associated with informal, rural activities, such as fishing or shooting, so it's inappropriate to wear it, either in coat or shoe form, in urban environments or to formal events — even those in the countryside, such as Royal Ascot. As a result, even if a person is wearing a blue suit or trousers, if one is in such an environment, one is supposed to wear black shoes. This rule applies to women as well as men as far as brown shoes or coats are concerned. They may wear shoes in other colours, though, while men may only wear black shoes.  

In this photo, the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex are both wearing blue lounge suits, but only William has correct footwear. As a side note, this is one way militaries and law enforcement obtain a crisp look for their dress uniforms. If one looks carefully at officers in full dress blue, one sees that they are wearing black shoes with their dress trousers. Even Oxford enforces this rule: at my matriculation, a couple of young men wore brown shoes instead of the black ones we were all specifically told to wear. Porters took them out of line and they weren't allowed to enter the Sheldonian for the matriculation ceremony. People wearing white socks or no tights (US English: hose) were also taken out of line. The porters had a supply of black knee socks for girls who needed them, but any boys not in appropriate dress had to wait outside until the ceremony finished.

The following rule is entirely social: it is rather vulgar for groomsmen to wear matching morning dress at a formal wedding. This rule stems from the Victorian era when clothing hire companies realized they could market matching outfits (which themselves were probably products of bulk orders) to lower-class men who wanted to wear formal clothes at their weddings.

As a result, matching outfits signaled that the people involved had hired their clothes; in other words, they didn't own their own, which in turn meant they didn't come from backgrounds or work in professions where they wore such clothes organically. In truth, because of the origins of this rule, any matching among groomsmen's outfits is tawdry, even if they aren't wearing morning dress. Nowadays, the objection to matching is that it is counterproductive to individuality. A man is supposed to wear his morning suit in the colours that become him, and it's ungracious to force him to wear something different.

An important note: due to the fact that many European and East Asian men first encounter morning dress as a school uniform or professional dress code, there is a tendency for such men to show up in similar coloured waistcoats, ties, or coats as a result of institutional requirements. This is not considered matching as there is plenty of room for variation in style or fit.  

In modern times, women have a more difficult time with morning dress codes because a woman's equivalent never completely developed back when these codes organically evolved. This was not due to sexism or discrimination but reflects the outfit's original purpose. The morning suit began as a riding habit. The slit in the tailcoat allowed a rider to sit down in the saddle without sitting on his coat and potentially causing his head and shoulders to snap back. The waistcoat provided warmth while allowing movement at the waist, which is probably a reason belts aren't worn with morning dress. The top hat was originally protective gear. Older top hats were heavier than modern ones because they were made out of felt-covered wood which hypothetically protected the wearer's head in the event of a fall or if a horse bolted and ran under a tree branch. As a result of the outfit's practical, utilitarian purpose, women wore the same clothes, including trousers, with the addition of a side-saddle apron. The apron was a false skirt that fastened to the rider's ankle when mounted but could be fastened together in back when a woman was standing so that she appeared to be wearing a skirt.

This apron is the solution to the "puzzle" in Downton Abbey when Lady Mary is seen riding side saddle after her maid Anna spent most of an episode looking for "her ladyship's breeches," which had wound up in Lord Grantham's wardrobe by accident. (Did anyone else wonder that the servants didn't notice that one pair of trousers was significantly smaller than the others before putting said pair in his lordship's wardrobe?)

As the reader can see, it was socially permissible for a woman to decorate her top hat in a way men were not allowed to do. But at its core, the top hat was a unisex item. Because of its function as protective headgear, the top hat is unreliable as a class signifier for the nineteenth and some of the twentieth century.

In the picture of laborers in Sweden in the early twentieth century, the man on the far left is wearing a top hat. The coachman, probably a Hansom cab driver, is wearing one in the center photo, but the man getting into the carriage is wearing a high-crowned bowler hat. And the postman in the print is wearing a top hat. Rather famously, chimney sweeps wore top hats, which became a cultural trope through books like Mary Poppins. While chimney sweeps (which is still a proper trade in Europe) occasionally still wear top hats in the name of tradition, the practice probably had its origins in the fact that the hat was the period equivalent of a hard hat.

By the late nineteenth century, chimney sweeps routinely wore tailcoats as part of their work uniform. The custom probably began as a practicality – black coats didn't show soot – but became a tradition. The bottom right picture was taken in 1962, and it shows two bricklayers in Manchester. While their formal clothes might have been a marketing gimmick since the description noted that they ran a builder's business, these photos help explain why the Victorians held renting formal clothes to be so egregious: if cab drivers, postmen, bricklayers, or chimney sweeps wore clothing suitable for formal occasions (even if in need of cleaning or mending), was a man unemployed, was that why he had no need for formal clothes (a simplistic view but one in character to the time period, e.g. Somerset Maugham's Liza of Lambeth)?

The top hat as an elite symbol is rooted in the fact that it was a part of the school uniform for British private preparatory boarding schools, most notably Eton and Harrow, where boys would become accustomed to wearing formal clothes on a daily basis.

The photo on the left is the infamous "Toughs and toffs" photo from 1936. In both photos, the boys in top hats aren't wearing tailcoats, but rather a short coat for younger boys called an "Eton (whether or not the wearer was actually a student at Eton, e.g. the boys in "Toughs and toffs" were Harrovians) jacket." They are also wearing the wider, stiffer collars, called "Eton collars," which were part of the uniform for younger students. A student would upgrade to full morning dress as an older teenager, i.e. once he was closer to his full height (which is why it is inappropriate for children in wedding parties to wear the same clothes as adults). It is important to acknowledge that the three boys not in uniforms repudiated the photo as not representative of their realities – when interviewed, they pointed out that one reason they were dressed so informally was that they were playing hooky from their private Church of England school. Today, these schools have mostly relaxed their dress codes, but they — like Oxford — still have events where students must wear formal dress, thereby acclimating them to it. In my experience, youth orchestras serve a similar purpose in the US, albeit for evening dress rather than morning dress.  

Originally, the morning coat, i.e. the cutaway tailcoat, was the informal option to the formal frock coat. Unlike the morning coat, which was a British invention, the frock coat has its roots in ancien régime French court dress.

For formal morning dress, the main choice is between the tailcoat or the frock coat as the trousers, shirt, waistcoat, tie/cravat, and hat requirements remain the same. Black is pretty much the only colour for frock coats. The frock coat style and cut is common among women's overcoats, and as a result the female version has more colour variations than the male version. Up until the 1980s, the frock coat was required dress for people working in the City of London.

Here is a charming photo that captures the generational difference between a morning coat and a frock coat. Joseph Douglass, a concert violinist who studied at Boston Conservatory, was eighteen or nineteen in this photo. He wears full morning dress with a cutaway tailcoat. His grandfather, former slave and famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass, was seventy-three or seventy-four in this photo. He wears a frock coat with plain black trousers. Basically what Frederick Douglass is wearing would have been full formal daytime dress when he was a young man. The black frock coat is mostly not in use anymore, except in diplomatic circles where it is still formal dress for diplomats. It is also appropriate for state occasions, but the last one where the frock coat was widely used was Winston Churchill's funeral. It used to be required for daytime meetings with British royalty, but Edward VIII (the one who abdicated) suspended that protocol and it wasn't resumed after World War II.

Today, morning dress is the daytime equivalent of white tie. For women, the code is a dress that comes to at least the knee, but not to the ankle or ground, in a daytime colour (brilliant or vibrant colours are for evening) or pattern and a hat.  If she wants to wear trousers, they should be ankle-length, black, and in a formal cut. Women's tops and jackets are held to the same rules as dresses in terms of colours or patterns.  

The black tie, i.e. semi-formal, equivalent of morning dress is the stroller jacket.

A stroller jacket cut is similar to that of a lounge jacket, or what is now known as a suit jacket, but it is longer. It is meant to be worn with a lounge tie or bow tie, not a cravat. It is not paired with a top hat. The hat shown is a bowler hat. But the trousers, shirt, and waistcoat requirement remain the same as morning suits. When Winston Churchill made the V sign outside Downing Street during World War II, he was wearing a stroller suit paired with (I think) an Astor hat.

Ronald Reagan wore a stroller suit for his first inauguration, though not for his second. Conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim appears to have worn a stroller jacket, trousers, shirt and tie at a concert at the Musikverein in Vienna in 2008. He does not appear to have worn a waistcoat — which might be uncomfortable for conducting — but that would mean that his outfit wasn't a proper stroller suit. Despite falling out of mainstream use (I believe law clerks in the UK are still required to wear strollers, but I haven't been able to verify that), stroller suits can still be purchased. I don't know of many situations where the stroller is worn, though, as most formal daytime events are assumed to require morning suits. Women don't really have an equivalent to the stroller suit. On the rare occasions where I have seen it used, for example by porters in Oxford, women simply wear the same suit as men.

The most regularly scheduled event where one must wear morning dress is Royal Ascot. The stewards will only admit people dressed according to protocol. There is a (probably) apocryphal story that stewards barred Princess Anne's daughter Zara when she showed up not dressed to code. Other formal events where morning dress is appropriate are weddings, christenings, or royal audiences. Otherwise, morning dress is expected at any occasion before 6:00 PM where the hosts specify the dress code is formal. Usually, this means weddings. At formal weddings, morning dress is not reserved for the bridal party, but it applies to all family and guests.

(The significance behind a Russian-Austrian [though raised in the US] Galitzine-Habsburg princess' marriage to a Roman Catholic commoner in a Russian Orthodox ceremony is a subject for another day. But if anyone is interested, an issue I wrote on the matter of aristocratic marriages, familial associations, and religious affiliation is linked here.)

However, there are reasons for not maintaining a formal dress code at a formal event, e.g. a wedding, which is by its nature meant to be a formal event. In my own family, we decided to have an informal dress code — lounge suits — for a wedding. We made this decision out of consideration for the fact that we were having a Tridentine Catholic ceremony, which meant we already had to enforce modesty standards as well as a religious dress code governing head coverings. Having to arrange these two aspects was challenging enough without adding in the complexities of morning dress. Her family did things properly and came attired in a combination of traditional dress — hanbok — and an East Asian variant of morning dress (I'm not sure of the Korean name, but in Japan, a similar outfit, rooted in the stroller suit, is called citydress).

On the subject of formal wear and weddings, something should be said about dress codes for cross-cultural formal weddings. The rule is that the women may choose to wear the traditional formal dress of their culture, but men should wear morning dress, with the exception of the groom, who may also choose to wear traditional dress.

I recently became aware after some events where this rule was followed that outside observers accused guests or participants of "cultural appropriation." This type of accusation is especially painful for multi-racial, multi-heritage people, such as a girl used to to know who had a Korean grandparent and was natively bilingual between Korean and English, but physically she took after the Caucasian side of her family, having blond hair and grey eyes. I would like to point out that accusing her and people like her of cultural appropriation is a form of racism perpetrated by people who often claim to be antiracists. In the meantime, my reaction is that anyone who thinks lounge suits are the apex of formal dress doesn't have the right to an opinion on clothes, culture, or etiquette.

On the final point of daytime formal dress, there is one institution whose sartorial and socio-cultural ignorance is legendary: Hollywood. If a scene involves formalwear, be it morning or evening dress, they will get something wrong. Here they made a particularly egregious mistake because it is specifically forbidden in sartorial etiquette books.

What's wrong with James Bond's morning suit? Hint: the problem is discussed above.

Answer: ˙ʇɐoɔ ƃuᴉuɹoɯ ʎǝɹƃ ʇɥƃᴉl ɐ ɥʇᴉʍ ɹɐlloɔ ƃuᴉʍ ɐ ƃuᴉɹɐǝʍ s,ǝH

Happy Sunday!

MLD

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