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:
“Of all things in life, Mrs. Lee held this kind of court-service in contempt, for she was something more than republican—a little communistic at heart, and her only serious complaint of the President and his wife was that they undertook to have a court and to ape monarchy. She had no notion of admitting social superiority in any one, President or Prince, and to be suddenly converted into a lady-in-waiting to a small German Grand-Duchess, was a terrible blow.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Maud Muller looked and sighed: “Ah me!
That I the Judge’s bride might be!
“He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
“My father should wear a broadcloth coat,
My brother should sail a painted boat.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Rev. J.D. Liddell: The Kingdom of God is not a democracy. The Lord never seeks re- election. There’s no discussion. No deliberation. No referenda as to which road to take. There’s one right, one wrong. One absolute ruler.
Sandy: A dictator, you mean.
Rev. J.D. Liddell: Aye, but a benign, loving dictator.”
—Colin Welland (b. 1934)