The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-18
FULL DRESS NOW
 TABOO AT COURT
With Advent Of Labor May Come Even More Drastic
 Reforms

LONDON, Feb. 17.-The greasy lneckerchief and pancake cap of the ldockside cockney are not yet considered derigeur at the formal court functions lof King George V, but reforms take time and such regalia may yet be recog- nized as proper. The tendency is that way For with the accession of the labor government, there have arrived in important positions in Westminster la number of men who share the dislike for formal dress, which has made Sem ators Br0okhart and Mangus Johnson 50 conspicuous in Washington. There are others who simply haven't the price of what are known as "cab-starters' suits," those weighty jackets, all covered with pounds of epaulets and gold em- broidery, and cooked hats of beaver, trimmed in ostrich feathers.
 However, there is nobody in the British government who rejects all com promise on formal dress as Senator Brookhart does.} And it has been found agreeable to both the King and the new officials of the government to adopt q semi-formal state uniform for court oc- casions. -n
 Labor Officials Not Rich
 This consists of an ordinary full dress jacket of black, silk. stockings, black knee brooches, white waistcoat and white evening tie. An enterprising firm of -tailors has circularized some of the new personnel at Westminster, offering to provide real court suits for about $76O, but even this sum, trifling as it may have seemed to the tailors themselves, after generations of contact >VsAh %hxy svnla nd kiYrA ministers, will be too much for some of few of whom would feel more at home will be quite acceptable to many.
 One of the leading firms of court tailors estimates that the very cheap est formal court jacket would come to $7O0. Then,e as extras, there would be brooches of white kerseymere, white silk stockings, patent leather shoes, cooked hat, sword with gold knot, gold buckles for knees and shoes. Oh, the entire outfit, done right by tailors who know their business, would come to say $1 POO. But then, one must have ones formal levee uniform, too, if one is go- ing in for formality at all, and that would cost, say, roughly, $4OO more. It IS the 1o-Kdrat eOlu III the euDroluery and the labor of sewing it on correctly, with each oakleaf pointing at just the proper fraction of an angle, that makes the jacket cost money. The embroidery is five inches wide on each side of the opening down the front of the jacket, and also along the bottom, up the seams in the back, and on the cuffs.~ It has never happened yet, but it is not inconceivable that some day a man of not very robust stature might collapse at court under the weight of his jacket, or at least contract an acute case of bow-legs.
 It hsa long been suspected that some of the native, as well as foreign, digni- taries do not own the court regalia in which they strut so magnificent on grand occasions, but rent their scenery from confidential sources in the West End, just as New York laundry clerk might rent dinner jacket to take his girl dancing for an evening. The fee, however, is said to be $25 night with an extra charge for mending the pants if they should split as the wearer kneels before the throne.