Formal wear

Dress codes

The dress codes counted as formal wear are the formal dress codes of morning dress for daytime and white tie for evenings. Although some consider strollers for daytime and black tie for the evening as formal, they are traditionally considered semi-formal attires, sartorially speaking below in formality level.

The clothes dictated by these dress codes for women are ball gowns. For many uniforms, the official clothing is unisex. Examples of this are court dress, academic dress, and military full dress uniform.

Morning dress

Morning dress is the daytime formal dress code, consisting chiefly for men of a morning coat, waistcoat, and striped trousers, and an appropriate dress for women.

White tie

The required clothing for men, in the evening, is roughly the following:

• Formal trousers, uncuffed, with stripes on leg seams
• White piqué front or plain stiff-fronted shirt with a detachable wing collar, cuff links and shirt studs
• White piqué bow tie
• White piqué vest (waistcoat)
• A (dress coat) evening tailcoat
• Black patent leather court shoes
• Accessories

Women wear a variety of dresses. See ball gowns, evening gowns, and wedding dresses. Business attire for women has a developmental history of its own and generally looks different from formal dress for social occasions.

Supplementary alternatives

Many invitations to white tie events, like the last published edition of the British Lord Chamberlain's Guide to Dress at Court, explicitly state that national costume or national dress may be substituted for white tie.

In general, each of the supplementary alternatives applies equally for both day attire, and evening attire.

Ceremonial dress

Including court dresses, diplomatic uniforms, and academic dresses.

Full dress uniform

Prior to World War II formal style of military dress, often referred to as full dress uniform, was generally restricted to the British, British Empire and United States armed forces; although the French, Imperial German, Swedish and other navies had adopted their own versions of mess dress during the late nineteenth century, influenced by the Royal Navy.

In the U.S. Army, evening mess uniform, in either blue or white, is considered the appropriate military uniform for white-tie occasions. The blue mess and white mess uniforms are black tie equivalents, although the Army Service Uniform with bow tie are accepted, especially for non-commissioned officers and newly commissioned officers. For white-tie occasions, of which there are almost none in the United States outside the national capital region for U.S. Army, an officer must wear a wing-collar shirt with white tie and white vest. For black tie occasions, officers must wear a turndown collar with black tie and black cummerbund. The only outer coat prescribed for both black- and white-tie events is the army blue cape with branch colour lining.

Religious clothing

Certain clergy wear, in place of white tie outfits, a cassock with ferraiolone, which is a light-weight ankle-length cape intended to be worn indoors. The colour and fabric of the ferraiolone is determined by the rank of the cleric and can be scarlet watered silk, purple silk, black silk or black wool. For outerwear, the black cape (cappa nigra), also known as a choir cape (cappa choralis), is most traditional. It is a long black woolen cloak fastened with a clasp at the neck and often has a hood. Cardinals and bishops may also wear a black plush hat or, less formally, a biretta. In practice, the cassock and especially the ferraiolone have become much less common and no particular formal attire has appeared to replace them. The most formal alternative is a clerical waistcoat incorporating a Roman collar (a rabat) worn with a collarless French cuff shirt and a black suit, although this is closer to black-tie than white tie.

Historically, clerics in the Church of England would wear a knee-length cassock called an apron, accompanied by a tailcoat with silk facings but no lapels, for a white tie occasion. In modern times this is rarely seen. However, if worn, the knee-length cassock is now replaced with normal dress trousers.

Cultural dress

In Western formal state ceremonies and social functions, diplomats, foreign dignitaries, and guests of honour wear a Western formal dress if not wearing their own national dress.

Many cultures have a formal day and evening dress, for example:

• Áo dài — worn by both men and women in Vietnam, is a modern variation of áo ngũ thân from the 18th century. Collars can be mandarin collar or collarless. Sleeves can be long-sleeved, short-sleeved or elbow-length.
• Av Pak — both traditional and modern, embroidered blouse worn by women in Cambodia for special occasions and traditional festivals
• Bandhgala — also called Jodhpuri suit, worn by men in India, is a traditional dress
• Barong tagalog — worn by men in the Philippines
• Bisht — worn by men with thawb and shmagh or ghutrah and agal in formal and religious occasions, e.g. Eid, in some Eastern Arab countries like (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and others)
• Batik shirt — worn by men and women in Indonesia. Besides counting as formal wear, batik shirts are worn well into the informal level.
• Bunad — worn as formal dress by women and men in Norway
• Changshan — a long male version of the qipao, which originated during the Qing dynasty. It can be of cotton for ordinary wear, or of silk for those within aristocratic families. Beneath the changshan, the man generally wears a white mandarin-collar long-sleeved shirt and a pair of dark-colored long pants. Like the qipao, this changshan male gown has slits on both sides (at least knee level) as well. Worn either by Chinese men in the martial arts world or as attire for weddings to match the qipao the bride wears. The qipao and changshan originated as Manchu dresses which government officials, but not ordinary civilians, were required to wear under the Qing dynasty's laws. Gradually, the general Han Chinese civilian population shifted from wearing traditional Chinese hanfu clothing to the qipao and changshan.
• Cheongsam — a modern female variation of the Qing dynasty silk dress, characterized by a high mandarin collar and side slits of varying lengths. It can be sleeveless, short-sleeved, elbow-length or long-sleeved, and has been adopted by most Chinese women as Chinese wear, depending on materials and occasions.
• Daura-Suruwal — worn as formal dress by men in Nepal
• Dashiki — worn by men in West African countries
• Dhoti — worn by men in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Tamil men in Sri Lanka
• Folkdräkt — worn as formal dress by women and men in Sweden
• Hátíðarbúningur — worn by men in Iceland to formal events such as state dinners and weddings
• Hanbok — worn by both men and women in Korea
• Highland dress with Scottish kilt — worn as formal dress by men in Scotland or of Scottish descent
• Kebaya — worn by women in Malaysia and Indonesia
• Mao suit, worn as diplomatic uniform and evening dress by officials of the People's Republic of China
• Sari — worn by women in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
• Shalwar kameez — worn by both men and women in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh
• Sherwani worn by men in India and Pakistan

Frock coat

Although ceased as a protocol-regulated required formal attire at the British royal court in 1936 at the order of the short-reigning King Edward VIII, the frock coat—embodying the background for all contemporary civil formal wear—has not altogether vanished. Yet, it is a rarity mostly confined to infrequent appearances at certain weddings.

The state funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965 included bearers of frock coats.

To this day, King Tupou VI of Tonga (born 1959) has been a frequent wearer of frock coats at formal occasions.

Also more recent fashion has been inspired by frock coats: Prada's autumn editions of 2012, Alexander McQueen's menswear in the autumn of 2017, and Paul Smith's autumn 2018.