Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black Definition

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In addition to providing clarity and self-confidence, prescribed attire also helps to generate a sense of occasion.  Combined with a specific code of conduct it fashions a social ritual that elevates one type of happening above another.  Fine restaurants may go to great lengths to provide a more elegant atmosphere than a local pub, for example, but if their customers import typical pub clothing and behavior then these establishments are robbed of much of their special character.  Unfortunately this fact is increasingly evident in today’s world as the once noble quest to end aristocratic snobbery manifests itself in a growing culture of democratic slobbery. 

Act of Consideration

Just as a host or hostess can show consideration towards guests by providing clear dress guidelines, so does a guest return the favor by being mature enough to honor them.  As Debrett's author John Morgan so eloquently points out “by being seen to make an effort you are paying your host or hostess a great compliment, as well as making yourself look your most attractive.  After all, the short time required for getting yourself dressed is negligible compared with the hours the hostess might have put in preparing the party.”  This is particularly true for formal dress codes where ignoring the prescribed etiquette will make it clear that you could not care less about the desires of your host or the experience of your fellow guests.

Evening Dress Codes

(D)evolution of Formal

“Formal” is defined as maintaining a form or tradition and so formal wear is distinctive for preserving sartorial customs of previous times.  Although it evolves with changing fashions evening wear deliberately remains a step or two behind them in a process much like a slow-motion ripple effect.  When a new standard in daywear splashes onto the sartorial scene the previous norm is pushed out to the realm of formal evening wear which in turn drives prior evening garb to the outer circles of very formal dress and ultimately consigns the previous occupant of that position to the fashion history books.

Formal, Semiformal and Informal

While there once was a near-universal consensus of what defined “formal” clothing, the concept has become highly subjective in today’s world. 

During Victorian and Edwardian times the term applied to virtually any evening that included mixed company and such occasions demanded men be attired in full dress; dinner jackets were considered distinctly “informal” and were confined to stag affairs.  After the First World War standards were relaxed and formal was redefined as occasions of prestige and ceremony while the honorific “semi-formal” was applied to the tuxedo which had replaced the tailcoat as de facto evening wear. 

World War II prompted a further loosening of social mores including the acceptance of the common suit at typical evening affairs and the consequent elevation of the dinner jacket to special occasion attire.  While some communities maintained the pre-war dress codes, other segments of society that rarely wore tailcoats began to classify the tuxedo as formal and the suit as semi-formal.  This new interpretation became increasingly popular during the 1960s and 1970s when the arrival of such casual garments as the leisure suit and turtleneck as acceptable day wear bumped the regular suit further up the dress code ladder which in turn promoted the tuxedo’s formality and all but guaranteed the redundancy of the tailcoat. 

Today, when it is not uncommon for men to wear T-shirts to the office and sandals to the theater, the concept of formal is even more ambiguous and can mean anything from a tuxedo to a dark suit to a black shirt with designer jeans.  A casualty of individualism’s triumph over communalism, traditional dress codes are now largely redundant outside of weddings, one of the last bastions of middle-class formal ritual.  (For complete details of how the codes are interpreted in this context see Formal Evening Weddings.

Formal Gray Areas: Overdress or Underdress?

Clearly, interpreting dress codes today is far more complicated than it was in years past.  As A Gentleman Gets Dressed Up explains, the best solution for uncertain guests is to seek clarification:

If a gentleman has any doubts as to what he should wear to a wedding – or any other ceremonial occasion, no matter how formal or informal, - he feels free to contact his host or hostess, simply asking “what do you think most of the fellows there will be wearing?”  He does not content himself with asking uninformed friends.

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black

Formal Wear Dresse Black