Morning dress is the daytime formal dress code, consisting chiefly for men of a morning coat, waistcoat, and striped trousers, and an appropriate dress for women. Men may also wear a popular variant where all parts (morning coat, waistcoat and trousers) are the same colour/material, often grey and usually called 'Morning Grey' to distinguish it; this is only properly appropriate to weddings and races, and is known as a morning suit.
Morning dress is now rarely worn as anything other than formal wear, as a form of Civic Dress e.g. by provincial Mayors (as an alternative to Court Dress), but more generally only for weddings, some official Civic, governmental or Royal functions, social 'Season' events e.g. races such as Royal Ascot, formal lunches (especially those in the City of London institutions notably of the Livery Companies and Guilds) and as uniform at some of Britain's most traditional schools such as Eton.
Famous quotes containing the words morning and/or dress:
“Alas for the cripple Practice when it seeks to come up with the bird Theory, which flies before it. Try your design on the best school. The scholars are of all ages and temperaments and capacities. It is difficult to class them, some are too young, some are slow, some perverse. Each requires so much consideration, that the morning hope of the teacher, of a day of love and progress, is often closed at evening by despair.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Let your dress fall down your shoulder,
come touch a copy of you....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)