Court uniform and dress in the United Kingdom were worn by those in attendance at the royal court up until the mid-20th century and are still worn as formal dress by certain office-holders.
Specifically, court uniform was worn by those holding particular offices associated with the Crown (including certain specified civil servants and members of the Royal Household, and all Privy Counsellors). Its use extended to the diplomatic service and officials working in the colonies and dominions. A range of office-holders were entitled to wear it, with different classes of uniform specified for different grades of official. Introduced in the early 1820s, it is still worn today on state occasions by a select number of dignitaries both in the UK and in certain other Commonwealth realms.
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 comprised a matching tailcoat and waistcoat, breeches and stockings, lace cuffs and cravat, together with a cocked hat and a sword. For women, a white or cream evening gown was to be worn, together with a train and other specified accoutrements.Dress and Insignia Worn at His Majesty's Court. Various editions 1898–1937 Male court dress is still worn today as part of the formal dress of judges and King's Counsel, and is also worn by certain lord mayors, parliamentary officials, and high sheriffs of counties. Formerly, female court dress was required wear for debutantes being presented at court, but it ceased to be regularly worn after the Second World War, as afternoon presentations largely replaced evening courts.
Forms of courtly dress were at one time dictated by fashion, but they later came to be subject to (increasingly detailed) regulations. By the end of the 18th century court dress, for men and for women, was becoming more fixed in style and beginning to look rather antiquated. From the end of the 19th century, precise descriptions were laid down (of court dress and court uniform) in an official publication called Dress Worn at Court, which was issued with the authority of the Lord Chamberlain. The 1937 edition remains authoritative for those rare circumstances in which court uniform or court dress are still required.
Women's court dress
For women (as for men) court dress originally meant the best and most opulent style of clothing, as worn in fashionable and royal society. A distinctive style can be seen in the dresses and accoutrements worn by courtly ladies in the Elizabethan period, and likewise in subsequent reigns. The Commonwealth put a stop to Court activity – and to opulent display in general; but with the Restoration, the opportunities afforded by attendance at the royal court was taken up all the more zealously by young women of status or aspiration (and their families).
Fashion (and wealth) continued to dictate what was worn on these occasions; but in the late eighteenth century, a degree of fossilisation began to set in, with the result that women in attendance at royal courts were still, in the early nineteenth century, to be seen in garments with side-hoops, reminiscent of forms of dress fashionable in the mid-1700s. In the 1820s, however, George IV made known his opinion that obsolete side-hooped dresses should no longer be worn; and thereafter fashion began to have more of an impact on the style of dress worn by women at court.
Courtly garments, then, can be seen reflecting something of the contemporary fashions of high society, from the expansive skirts and crinolines of the 1850-60s, through the posterior bustles of the 1870s & 80s, right through to the straight gowns of the 1920s.
Some details of court dress, though, were more or less invariable (and these set court dress apart from more ordinary forms of evening or day wear in any given period). From the late eighteenth century what was worn at court had been subject to a degree of regulation, and this helped standardise certain features. Most noticeably, court dresses (regardless of style) were expected to have a sizeable train (usually separate from the dress itself). Trains were required to be a minimum of three yards in length; in the late 1800s a length of fifteen yards was not unusual. The dress itself was expected to be long and low-cut (again, whatever the style). The prescribed headwear was also distinctive: ostrich feathers were to be worn (usually three in number, 'mounted as a Prince of Wales plume' according to the instructions given in Dress worn at Court) - a style which had its origin in fashionable eighteenth-century daywear; along with lace lappets (first seen in the 1660s, and still being worn by some ladies in the 1930s).
From time to time, reminders were issued as to the correct form: for example, in 1834 it was stated in the London Gazette that 'some Ladies having appeared at Her Majesty's Drawing-Rooms in hats and feathers, and turbans and feathers, and such head dresses being contrary to Court etiquette; notice is hereby given, that all Ladies attending the Queen's Drawing-Rooms must appear in feathers and lappets, in conformity with the established order'. Coloured feathers were not allowed; but 'in deep mourning black feathers may be worn'. By the 1870s 'white veils' were allowed to be worn, as an alternative to lappets.
Occasionally these accoutrements were dispensed with: at the coronations of 1821 and 1831, ladies (attending with peers or privy counsellors) were instructed to appear in full Court dresses 'without lappets or trains'. In 1838, all persons seated in the choir of Westminster Abbey not being peers were to wear 'full court dress'; but ladies seated elsewhere in the Abbey could simply wear 'evening dress, without feathers'. (Peeresses wore their robes, and 'Court dresses, without feathers, lappets, or trains').
By the end of the nineteenth century, the main occasions at which court dresses were worn were those at which debutantes were presented to the Queen. In the twentieth century (especially following the First World War), occasions for full court dress diminished. It was still required wear for ladies attending the 1937 coronation (albeit without trains and veils - and Peeresses were expected to wear tiaras rather than feathers);London Gazette, 29 December 1936 ff but in 1953, ladies attending the coronation were directed to wear 'evening dresses or afternoon dresses, with a light veiling falling from the back of the head. Tiaras may be worn ... no hats'.London Gazette, 29 December 1952 Court presentations continued, except during wartime, but they gradually became less opulent.
In the post-war 1940s evening court events were replaced with afternoon presentations (for which afternoon dresses were worn); and with that, the donning of full court dress ceased to be a rite of passage for young women taking their place in society.
Men's court dress Court dress (as distinguished from court uniform) was worn by all men not entitled to court uniform or military uniform on occasions of state where such were customarily worn. Such occasions are now rare, but formerly they included state balls, evening state parties, courts, drawing rooms and levées. (Courts were evening occasions at which women were formally presented to the monarch, drawing rooms were the daytime equivalent; levées were morning gatherings at which men were presented.)
It is still worn today, to a limited extent in courts of law and by certain parliamentary, civic and other office-holders; the last time it was worn by people in very significant numbers was at the Coronation in 1953. It consists of a tail-coat with matching waistcoat and breeches, lace cuffs and jabot, silk stockings, buckled shoes, cocked hat, white gloves and a sword. At one time suits of various colours were to be seen, often with gold or silver embroidery; but (as is generally the case with men's formal dress) black is now the predominant colour, and has been since the nineteenth century.
The first time strict regulations were issued with regard to men's court dress was in 1666; the novel inclusion of a 'vest' as part of the ensemble has led many historians to identify this as the point of origin of the three-piece suit.
Origin
In October 1666 King Charles II published in Council new regulations for the correct form of dress to be worn by gentlemen at Court. Court fashion at that time had grown very extravagant: writing in 1661, John Evelyn described a gentleman walking through Westminster Hall as 'a fine silken thing [...] that had as much ribbon about him as would have plundered six shops and set up twenty country pedlars; all his body was drest like a May-pole, or a Tom o' Bedlam's cap'.Tyrannus, or the Mode, quoted in Mansfield, Ceremonial Costume (1980). According to Samuel Pepys, the King's new sartorial directive was intended 'to teach the nobility thrift, and will do good'.The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S. 8 October 1666
Pepys described the King's new 'vest' as 'a long cassocke close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silke under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black riband like a pigeon's leg'.The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S. 15 October 1666 The outfit was worn with a silver-hilted sword. Pepys went on to observe that 'upon the whole, I wish the King may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment'. Within a matter of days, though, the court took to wearing plain velvet rather than pinked, because 'they say the King says the pinking upon white makes them look too much like magpyes'.The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S. 17 October 1666
The vest, described by Pepys as being like a 'cassocke', was sleeved and calf-length; the coat worn over it was only slightly shorter. Over time they developed into the waistcoat and tailcoat respectively. Initially they were long and loose fitting, but by the end of the century they were beginning to be closer cut, and hung to just above the knee.
The introduction of this form of court dress was seen by commentators at the time as a riposte to the French, and their sartorial influence on the English; nevertheless (and in spite of the declared intended permanence of the king's original instruction), by 1670 French fashions and flamboyance were once again very much in vogue in the English court.
18th century
Shape At the start of the 18th century, men's court dress (akin to women's fashion at that time) became exaggeratedly flared from the waist down. In the 1740s the coat fronts (and the long waistcoat) began to be cut back, to reveal the breeches worn underneath. In the 1770s, the 'skirt' of the coat was cut further back until (by the 1790s) only a pair of 'tails' at the back remained; at the same time the waistcoat began to be cut shorter. The waistcoat had remained sleeved until around 1750 (and was sometimes worn without the top coat), but by the 1770s it had been reduced to something like its modern dimensions. At around this time the 'French Frock' with turned down collar (its design inspired by a worker's overgarment of the same name) was fashionably worn at court.
By the end of the century men's court dress had developed into something much closer to the shape which it retains today; albeit it had by then become somewhat fixed in its design, and was already beginning to appear rather old fashioned.
Colour For much of the eighteenth century, gentlemen's court dress was often brightly coloured and richly decorated. On the king's birthday in 1722, for example, the Earl of Essex wore what was described as 'a silver tissue coat and pink colour lutestring wascote'. Coats 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.