Talk:Mess dress
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Is Mess dress the equivalent of Black Tie or of White Tie.
Both and neither! It is a long subject. Various nationalities also have varying traditions.
It is often the most formal type of dress, and such is worn both to white tie and black tie events. Both black tie and white tie is by tradition evening wear; however, it is often worn in the afternoon for such things as weddings (in Sweden white tie is the traditional dress for wedding, at all timings). Here the military individual would be more appropriately dressed in a uniform, the more formal the better. Full formal uniforms are also worn in the evening at specific events.
Navies usually have two types of formal mess dress, mess dress and mess undress, where the type of vest worn may vary. Some still have the formal white tie version with tails, although as the article points out, the RN no longer has this type. The USPHS has a formal style of mess dress, with a white vest and white bow tie, but with a short jacket. I don't know about the US Navy. Glenlarson 15:15, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
In the Canadian Forces, there's generally 3 different designs of mess dress floating around: the dinner jacket and accoutrements (must-have for regular force officers, optional for everyone else); the "Mess CF" drss (the pre-DEU midnight-blue tri-force mess dress); and "Mess Service", which is Service Dress with white shirt/bowtie for men and the white rollneck blouse for women; altho' recently they started allowing members to wear the basic Service Dress with the normal shirt & tie, the concept being you can't order a member to wear a uniform that you didn't issue. So basically CF mess dress runs the gamut from evening dress to a business suit. And just to add more variety, the Navy has "Shipboard Dress": Service Dress pants, short-sleeve summer dress shirt, and cummerbund (!). Doesn't look bad with the Navy whites, but let me tell you: there ain't many coloured cummerbunds that don't look dorky with linden green shirt & rifle green pants. SigPig 06:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Ladies?
Can we please have a description/discussion of women's military formalwear added to the various sections? At present, formal wear has mess dress listed under "unisex"? Is that true? Men and women wear the exact same formalwear? Please put an internal link under Women's styles at formal wear, i.e. [[mess dres#female mess dress|women's mess dress or something of that sort.
Article would also benefit from a discussion of what retired personnel and personnel on leave or not in active service where to formal occasions, if there are such guidelines.
Just some thoughts Quill 01:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
