Mess dress is the military term for the formal evening dress worn in the mess or at other formal occasions. It is also known as mess uniform and mess kit. It frequently consists of a mess jacket and trousers worn with a formal shirt and other formal accessories, though the exact form varies depending on the uniform regulations for each service.
This style of military dress is largely restricted to the British, Commonwealth of Nations and United States armed forces, though it is also sometimes worn by members of civilian uniformed services and members of a Royal Household. The French, Imperial German, and other navies adopted their own versions of mess dress during the late nineteenth century, influenced by the Royal Navy.
Read more about Mess Dress: Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Pakistan, United States, Germany, Israel, Sweden
Famous quotes containing the words mess and/or dress:
“It seemed like this was one big Prozac nation, one big mess of malaise. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House green it will not be for abortion rights or gay liberation, but because we’re all so bummed out.”
—Elizabeth Wurtzel, U.S. author. Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, p. 298, Houghton Mifflin (1994)
“Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.”
—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (b.1941)