Court Uniform And Dress In The United Kingdom
Court uniform and dress were required to be worn by those in attendance at the royal Court in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Specifically, Court uniform was worn by those holding particular offices (e.g. in the Government, the Civil Service, the Royal Household, etc.). A range of office-holders was entitled to wear it, with different grades of uniform specified for different grades of official. It is still worn today, on state occasions, by certain dignitaries both in the UK and abroad.
Court dress, on the other hand, is a stylized form of clothing deriving from fashionable eighteenth-century wear, and was directed to be worn at Court by those not entitled to Court uniform. Consisting of a matching tailcoat and waistcoat, breeches and stockings, lace cuffs and cravat, cocked hat and a sword, it survives today as part of the formal dress of Judges and QCs, and is also worn by certain Lord Mayors, by the Serjeant at Arms (and other Parliamentary officials), and by High Sheriffs of Counties.
For ladies (as for gentlemen) court dress originated in fashionable forms of dress worn in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but by the twentieth century the details of female court dress had become highly codified: a white evening dress with a train and various accoutrements were to be worn. Full court dress survived, most prominently, as required wear for debutantes when being presented at Court, but ceased to be worn after the war when afternoon presentations replaced evening Courts.
Precise descriptions, both of Court Uniform and of Court Dress, were laid down in an official publication called Dress Worn at Court (viewable online) which was published by the Lord Chamberlain's Office.
Read more about Court Uniform And Dress In The United Kingdom: Men's Court Dress, Women's Court Dress, Court Uniform
Famous quotes containing the words court, uniform, dress, united and/or kingdom:
“As to “Don Juan,” confess ... that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Thus for each blunt-faced ignorant one
The great grey rigid uniform combined
Safety with virtue of the sun.
Thus concepts linked like chainmail in the mind.”
—Thom Gunn (b. 1929)
“Jerry: That’s quite a dress you almost have on.
Milo: Thanks.
Jerry: What holds it up?
Milo: Modesty.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)