White tie (or full dress, evening dress, full evening dress; slang top hat and tails or white tie and tails, tailsuit, tails) is the most formal evening dress code in Western fashion. It is worn to ceremonial occasions such as state dinners in some countries, as well as to very formal balls and evening weddings. The chief components for men are the black dress coat commonly known as an evening tailcoat, white bow tie, white waistcoat and starched wing collar shirt, while women wear a suitable dress for the occasion, such as an evening gown.
As evening dress, white tie is traditionally considered correct only after 6 p.m. although some etiquette authorities allow for it anytime after dark even if that means prior to 6 p.m. (though there are some exceptions.) The equivalent formal attire for daytime events is called morning dress. The semi-formal evening counterpart of white tie is black tie.
Read more about White Tie: History, Related Forms of Dress
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or tie:
“A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,—the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They can not tell me.”
—Chief Joseph (c. 1840–1904)