Talk:Mess dress uniform

Untitled
Is Mess dress the equivalent of Black Tie or of White Tie.

Both and neither! It is a long subject. Various nationalities also have varying traditions.

It is often the most formal type of dress, and such is worn both to white tie and black tie events. Both black tie and white tie is by tradition evening wear; however, it is often worn in the afternoon for such things as weddings (in Sweden white tie is the traditional dress for wedding, at all timings). Here the military individual would be more appropriately dressed in a uniform, the more formal the better. Full formal uniforms are also worn in the evening at specific events.

Navies usually have two types of formal mess dress, mess dress and mess undress, where the type of vest worn may vary. Some still have the formal white tie version with tails, although as the article points out, the RN no longer has this type. The USPHS has a formal style of mess dress, with a white vest and white bow tie, but with a short jacket. I don't know about the US Navy. Glenlarson 15:15, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

In the Canadian Forces, there's generally 3 different designs of mess dress floating around: the dinner jacket and accoutrements (must-have for regular force officers, optional for everyone else); the "Mess CF" drss (the pre-DEU midnight-blue tri-force mess dress); and "Mess Service", which is Service Dress with white shirt/bowtie for men and the white rollneck blouse for women; altho' recently they started allowing members to wear the basic Service Dress with the normal shirt & tie, the concept being you can't order a member to wear a uniform that you didn't issue. So basically CF mess dress runs the gamut from evening dress to a business suit. And just to add more variety, the Navy has "Shipboard Dress": Service Dress pants, short-sleeve summer dress shirt, and cummerbund (!). Doesn't look bad with the Navy whites, but let me tell you: there ain't many coloured cummerbunds that don't look dorky with linden green shirt & rifle green pants. SigPig 06:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I edited a paragraph about the US Army White Mess Uniform. The paragraph basically stated that the White Mess Uniform is no longer allowed for wear. This is not true. The Army White Uniform has been done away with; however, the White Mess Uniform is still authorized for wear. -- A.G.Barker, SFC, USA

Ladies?
Can we please have a description/discussion of women's military formalwear added to the various sections? At present, formal wear has mess dress listed under "unisex"? Is that true? Men and women wear the exact same formalwear? Please put an internal link under Women's styles at formal wear, i.e. [[mess dres#female mess dress|women's mess dress or something of that sort.

Article would also benefit from a discussion of what retired personnel and personnel on leave or not in active service where to formal occasions, if there are such guidelines.

Just some thoughts Quill 01:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Contemporary British Army mess jackets
I have no intention of getting in a edit war with Plumtree100 over this issue. As far as I know there is no publicly accessible central record of how many individual regiments or corps currently retain the "infantry style" jacket or have changed to the "cavalry style" - since this is essentially a matter to be decided at unit level. The only consistently up-to-date sources of such information would be the websites of the various tailoring firms specialising in this type of uniform and these cannot be cited directly as references under the Wikipedia rules applying to commercial advertising. All that can be said is that prior to the regimental/corps amalgamations of 1958 to 2006 virtually all infantry, and most corps, had the simpler open fronted mess jackets and that now (with the exceptions cited and probably a few others) the position is reversed.If anyone knows better then please edit accordingly. Buistr (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Australian Army Perspective
In the Australian Army there is both 'summer mess kit' which is a white jacket and almost identical between different parts of the army, the second type is 'winter mess kit' which is made of a thicker material but has different coloured jacket designs depending on the wearers Corps. The winter mess dress also includes a waist coat. With both types the trousers are the same and vary slightly between Corps. As for women's attire in the Australian army the dresss is the same as mens except women wear a skirt instead of trousers. Both versions have a bow-tie and white shirt.--TinTin (talk) 06:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

British Merchant Navy and Coastguard?
Has anybody any information relating to the use of mess dress by the Merchant Navy or the Coastguard? --Thefrood (talk) 03:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Sweden?
At the marriage ceremony of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling on June 19, 2010 both H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf and  Prince Carl Philip appear to be wearing Swedish navy mess dress. Perhaps somebody with Swedish language skills could track down some more detailed info about the appearance and use of this mess dress.

Here are a couple of English language links
 * usa.publiboda.com
 * www.kungahuset.se

--Thefrood (talk) 01:51, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Just noticed that sv.wikipedia.org have an article on Swedish mess dress perhaps somebody could translate? --Thefrood (talk) 02:21, 8 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Done, A big thank you to Mr.choppers for translating the Swedish article. -- The frood  (talk) 08:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Air force mess dress
Is this the lesser or the greater mess dress? Greenshed (talk) 21:01, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Germany - Bundeswehr
The German wiki page about formal Bundeswehr uniforms has a description of both male & female mess dress. Unfortunately there a couple of words that the machine-translated version fails on - "Seidengalons" and "Torerobund".

Ausgehuniform#Gesellschaftsanzug

-- The frood (talk) 14:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * "Seidengalons" is a silk dress stripe along the trouser leg, while a Torerobund is a bullfighter-style waste sash (cf Kummerbund for cummerbund), called "fajín" in Spanish. I find Google image search in the respective languages an invaluable search tool.  ⊂&#124; Mr.choppers &#124;⊃   (talk) 18:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I did do a text search on the words but that really was not much help - I'll have to remember image search for next time.  -- The frood  (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Done what I can with the machine-translation, however if a German speaker does happen upon this I'm pretty sure it could benefit from a polish. -- The frood  (talk) 19:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * This is becoming a habbit, thanks once again to Mr.choppers for a top translation. -- The frood  (talk) 19:41, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks and cheers. This is kind of fun, actually.  ⊂&#124; Mr.choppers &#124;⊃   (talk) 19:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistencies

 * The article gives dress numbers in all the following forms: no. 1, No 1, No. 1.
 * There were 2 instances of epaulets and 6 of epaulettes; I converted to the latter throughout.
 * AFAICS the article is not tagged as British or American English. I converted the single instance of "pants" to "trousers", of which there were already 24 instances, so maybe you'll want to go for British. If so, you should change the "tuxedo" to "dinner jacket".
 * --Stfg (talk) 19:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I think "No. 1" is how I was taught to do it.


 * As the article has large sections devoted both to British/commonwealth and US usage of mess dress I imagine that settling on one flavour of English could be contentious but my vote would be to use British (Oxford) English as this uses "Z" in a similar manner to American English, so hopefully the US contributors to (and readers of) the page won't feel the language too strange. -- The frood talk 19:52, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Fastening of US Marine & Navy Jackets
I know this is a relatively minor detail, but I have added a note on how the US naval & Coast Guard officer and Marine enlisted jackets are double-breasted, but cut so as not to overlap, and instead fasten in the center. This is unusual: most other civilian (and military) exemplars in double-breasted seem to be cutaway, made in such a way as to be worn unbuttoned without gathering under the arms. The US version seems to be in imitation of the frogged smoking jacket/tuxedo, but the fastener does not appear to be a frog: it looks like a hook-and-eye on the inside with brass buttons on the outside for a more military appearance. Can anyone confirm if this is indeed how it fastens on the inside? Jpbrenna (talk) 07:49, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

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Requested move 22 June 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: move the page to Mess dress uniform as requested at this time, per the discussion below. As noted, there was little evidence presented to show that Mess dress was the more common form. Discussion does not seem to be ongoing after two weeks. Please feel free to initiate a new move request after a reasonable period if you would like to move the article to a different title. Dekimasu よ! 18:38, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Mess dress → Mess dress uniform – Per WP:PRECISION. Although "mess dress" may be evident to initiated readers, there is a whole bunch of related "dress" articles around, so it wouldn't hurt to give a little more precision to this article's name. Per WP:CONSISTENCY with Full dress uniform, and Service dress uniform. Chicbyaccident (talk) 01:22, 22 June 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Mahveotm (talk) 10:31, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support also per WP:RECOGNIZABLE, WP:CONSISTENCY (and WP:ATDAB – "mess dress" by itself is very ambiguous to people unfamiliar with the term, and sounds like it means some kind of apron).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:00, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Support עם ישראל חי (talk) 14:31, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. The current is jargon.  "Uniform" makes it recognizable to the non-military.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:48, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If "dress" is jargon, then "mess" probably is too! If someone doesn't know that "mess dress" is a uniform then they're probably not going to know what a mess is in a military sense either! I know, we could move it to Uniform military officers wear while attending formal dinners . How's that? No chance of any confusion there! But you see, this is an encyclopaedia; its function is to explain things to people. If we started eliminating anything that was faintly jargon from article titles then we'd have to rename at least half our articles. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:21, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * "Mess" isn't jargon, but rather somewhat analogous to "lounge" in lounge jacket; lounge suit. So I'm afraid your reductio ad absurdum counter-argument could be probably refuted thus. How can you be so sure that your preference for "mess dress" form corresponds to an appropriately WP:GLOBAL account? Chicbyaccident (talk) 13:28, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course it's jargon. It's a term used only in one field that could conceivably be misunderstood by someone without knowledge of that field. It's therefore jargon. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:14, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Irrelevant. Any given "Foo bar" construction in our titles is likely to be of the form "Jargon nonjargon". E.g. Minimaze procedure, Adeno-associated virus, Biocultural diversity, + a million other examples. Everyone understands what a uniform is; very few are going to understand "dress" with the meaning intended here, used as a stand-alone word. However, when you combine it with "uniform" a much larger proportion of readers will immediately understand that "mess dress uniform" is a kind of dress uniform, not a dress to wear when doing something messy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:06, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Unlike service dress uniform and full dress uniform, this is never commonly called mess dress uniform. Doesn't need disambiguation. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:22, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * how about change it to mess uniform עם ישראל חי (talk) 14:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not the common name! -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * this is per WP:CONSISTENCY & WP:PRECISION so common name doesn't matter and besides it is pretty common עם ישראל חי (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, WP:COMMONNAME most certainly does matter! It's a cornerstone of our naming guidelines. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 * like i said mess uniform is very common and additionally per per WP:CONSISTENCY & WP:PRECISION it should be changed עם ישראל חי (talk) 14:54, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 * On the request of, I would support mess uniform as a secondary option. Chicbyaccident (talk) 15:05, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 * But is mess uniform commonly used and is it commoner (or even anywhere near as common as) than mess dress? I'm dubious about either, frankly. We don't need blind consistency across titles (only in disambiguators) and mess dress is just as precise as mess uniform. It is what it is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:21, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Internet searches seem to confirm otherwise. Chicbyaccident (talk) 07:05, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose per User:Necrothesp. —  AjaxSmack  21:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The present name seems to be the common one, and unlike with full dress uniform, there's nothing else it could be confused with. I'd support moving Service dress uniform back to Service dress for the same reason.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:50, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd agree. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:22, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose over-precision with little to indicate common usage. And the other two moves should be promptly undone, as there was too little discussion for changing a longstanding title. One comment beyond the nomination in one week? Insufficient. oknazevad (talk) 11:25, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. It's not over-precision to prefer a longer title that the general reader will find meaningful to a shorter one only meaningful to those with knowledge of the subject. Yes, we do not want the whole lead sentence in the title, that would be ridiculous. But this is pure commonsense. Andrewa (talk) 02:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. This article weeps and sobs for a qualifier. We should see "uniform", rather than competing for COMMONNAME, as a natural disambiguation for "mess dress". So the title of this article should be either Mess dress uniform, Mess dress (uniform) or Mess dress (military), oslt.  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  19:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Conditional support While I don’t find anything wrong with mess Dress, adding uniform to the end does not detract from the article in any serious way. That being said, I am strongly opposed to any attempt to rename this Mess Uniform. Garuda28 (talk) 20:50, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Additional discussion
inter alia: Alright, so after this revert and comment, it all kind of became just one dimension too blurred. We have full dress uniform, dress uniform, mess dress, service dress uniform, and military uniform (did I forget any?). This sphere of articles all merit a clear overview. The certitude with which some users often contradictionarly assert definitions and scopes across these articles (as well as their assertions of applicable WP:COMMONNAME terms) would probably benefit from being more reevaluated than what seems to currently be the case. Especially WP:GLOBAL seems to be neglected. Chicbyaccident (talk) 11:53, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is iffy, but hard to nail down.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:32, 6 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Evidence? The opposes are claiming that "mess dress uniform" is not common (and that "mess dress" is the most common, but providing no evidence). The longer phrase is actually very common, including from most vendors of mess dress uniforms. However, a corresponding search without "uniform" produces useless results, because it's mostly adjectival uses ("mess dress" as a modifier): mess dress jacket, mess dress trousers, mess dress skirt, mess dress enlisted, mess dress code, etc., etc. All of these would have to be excluded (along with mess dress uniform) to finally boil down to "mess dress" used as a noun phrase by itself. Even starting this process with google doesn't seem to work; it always return about the same number of hits. So, some other means of getting stats would have to be used.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:30, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much about that doubts I have as well. Let's say "mess dress" is really the initiated correct form here, both by authoritative sources and backed by an authoritative view of available statistics (although none has really presented that). Still, it wouldn't hurt with a -uniform for WP:PRECISION, since at least none could possible argue that this precision, no matter how redundant, would be strictly incorrect. Thus WP:CONSISTENCY with the other ones weight in pretty strongly, one is inclined to think. In addition, the contents scopes and possibly even existence of all three of full dress uniform, dress uniform (raison d'être?), and mess dress uniform really could use a pretty bold work-through. Chicbyaccident (talk) 13:20, 6 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Russia and the former USSR
The recently added "Russia and the former USSR" section is interesting but the uniform described does not seem to be a Russian version of mess dress. It looks like a summer variant service dress and the text says that is worn at ceremonies such as receiving state awards which, in a western context, would be a service dress or ceremonial dress event. Can anyone provide any evidence that it is actually a form of mess dress or is worn an evening military social events like formal dinners etc? Thanks Greenshed (talk) 13:37, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I've no documentary evidence but I did work in Moscow (at a foreign embassy) during the final years of the USSR. At one evening function attended by Soviet army officers the "Tsar's green" parade uniform was worn. I don't think that "mess dress" in the strict British or US sense has ever been a part of Russian military culture. Having said that an illustration of the grey uniform does appear in Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Seaton's 1972 book "The Soviet Army" with the caption "The dress as worn here is for evening wear or for informal occasions".Buistr (talk) 23:56, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The concept of mess dress extends significantly beyond British and US military culture. However, as this Russian uniform not really mess dress then I don't think it belongs in this article unless a source can be found which states that it is a Russian mess dress. Greenshed (talk) 21:31, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I see that the stuff on Russian uniforms is back. I get the impression that the idea that it's a Russian equivalent of mess dress is a personal interpretation rather than a verifiable fact. It looks like a form of service dress to me. However, perhaps I'm wrong; if a citation to a reliable sources can be found that states that it is a Russian mess dress or similar then WP:V would be met. Greenshed (talk) 17:58, 5 November 2021 (UTC)