page_title: Court uniform and dress in the United Kingdom
section_title: Origins and development
hierarchical_section_title: Court uniform and dress in the United Kingdom / Men's court dress / Origins and development
caption_attribution_description: Britain Loves Wikipedia at the Victoria and Albert Museum Man's Court Coat and Waistcoat English: Man's Court Coat and Waistcoat About 1800 Britain or France Embroidered velvet and satin Men's Court dress was conservative in cut and decoration. By this period, rich fabrics and embroidery were no longer part of fashionable menswear. The standing collar, curving coat fronts and longer waistcoat style are also old fashioned, a survival from the 1770s. Collection ID: T.29A&amp;10-1910 This photo was taken as part of Britain Loves Wikipedia in February 2010 by David Jackson.
context_page_description: Court uniform and dress were required to be worn by those in attendance at the royal court in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
  Specifically, court uniform was worn by those holding particular offices. A range of office-holders were entitled to wear it, with different grades of uniform specified for different grades of official. It is still worn today on state occasions by certain dignitaries both in the UK and abroad.
  Court dress, on the other hand, is a stylized form of clothing deriving from fashionable eighteenth-century wear, which was directed to be worn at court by those not entitled to a court uniform. For men, it comprises a matching tailcoat and waistcoat, breeches and stockings, lace cuffs and cravat, cocked hat and a sword. For women, a white or cream evening dress is directed to be worn, together with a train and other specified accoutrements. Male court dress is still worn today as part of the formal dress of judges and Queen's Counsel, and is also worn by certain Lord Mayors, parliamentary officials, and high sheriffs of counties.
context_section_description: Peers' robes were worn over normal dress, which gradually became stylised as the court suit. It was only from the late eighteenth century that court dress became fossilised. By the early to mid eighteenth century velvet was largely confined to court dress. Court dress was obligatory in Westminster Abbey for all not wearing official or lordly apparel.
  During the seventeenth century, gentlemen's court dress was largely determined by two related influences, the retention of out-dated styles, producing a distinctive form of dress, and an interest in military uniform. The first produced the court suit, a coat with tails, waistcoat and knee breeches, worn with silk stockings, and a formal court sword with a cut-steel hilt and embellishments, and bicorne hat. The court suit has undergone a number of changes since the eighteenth century. However, apart from changes in the cut of the sleeves and shoulders, there was little basic alteration until the third quarter of the nineteenth century.
  In the eighteenth century, dress worn at court comprised gold and silver stuff, brocades, velvets and cloth coats. They were always embroidered, and worn with waistcoats generally of a different colour- gold or silver brocade, damask, silk or satin, heavily embroidered or laced in silver or gold. From the 1730s at least cloth was popular for court wear. By the 1780s dress was established as dark cloth or velvet, embroidered in silk or metal, single-breasted silk waistcoat (usually white), with the fronts curved away.
caption: Man's court coat and waistcoat, c. 1800.  Victoria and Albert Museum T.29A&10-1910
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