Mess Dress: Military Evening Wear and Its Influence on the Tuxedo

Mess dress is the formal evening uniform of military officers, worn at regimental dinners and official balls. The word "mess" refers to the officers' dining room where those dinners took place. It is not a tuxedo, yet the two share the same logic: a short jacket, striped trousers, dark cloth and a strict sense of order.

When mess dress is worn

Everyday uniform and parade dress do not suit a formal dinner, so armies created a uniform for the evening. It plays the part that black tie plays for civilians. Each service, regiment and country has its own version, with different cloth colours, facings, shoulder boards and badges. There is no single mess dress.

What all versions share is a short jacket with no tails. That separates it clearly from the tailcoat of white tie, which has long tails at the back.

The mess jacket and the striped trousers

The mess jacket usually stops at the waist and is cut open at the front. It is almost always worn with something covering the waistband, either a waistcoat in matching cloth or a cummerbund. Lapels, collar and cuffs are often faced in a unit colour, so you can tell the wearer's branch from across the room.

The trousers are high-waisted and straight, with a stripe down the outer seam. Depending on the regulations, the stripe may be a coloured band, a satin band or braid. This is the detail that most reminds people of the satin stripe on tuxedo trousers.

What the tuxedo borrowed from military dress

The history of clothing rarely has one clean point of origin, so the links below are the commonly cited ones rather than a proven family tree.

• A short jacket without tails. The dinner jacket appeared in Britain in the 1860s as a more relaxed alternative to the tailcoat. Mess jackets and other short evening coats in military use helped make the idea of dining without tails familiar.
• The side stripe. Ceremonial uniform trousers have carried outer-seam stripes for a long time. The satin or braid stripe on tuxedo trousers is generally seen as an echo of that tradition. Our piece on why tuxedo trousers have a satin stripe goes into more detail.
• The cummerbund. It is usually traced to the waist sash worn by British officers in India, used instead of a waistcoat in the heat. The word itself comes from the languages of that region.
• The white dinner jacket. White evening jackets for hot climates, familiar to officers and officials in the tropics, later became the civilian summer choice.
• Restraint. Matching buttons, sharp creases, nothing showy. The spirit is the same in both outfits.

Mess dress and tuxedo compared

Detail	Mess dress	Tuxedo
Jacket length	Short to the waist, often open in front	Reaches the seat, fastened with one or two buttons
Colour	Set by the unit (dark blue, scarlet, black, tropical white)	Black, midnight blue, ivory
Insignia	Shoulder boards, rank, miniature medals	None
Waist covering	Waistcoat or cummerbund	Waistcoat or cummerbund
Who wears it	Serving personnel, by regulation	Anyone, when the invitation says black tie

Where you may meet mess dress at a civilian event

In Vietnam, military personnel wear ceremonial uniforms under their own regulations, so Western-style mess dress is uncommon. You may see it at embassy receptions where foreign military attachés attend, at international veterans' dinners, or at large diplomatic evenings.

Invitations in those settings sometimes read "black tie or mess dress". Civilians wear a tuxedo, officers wear their mess dress, and both are correct. Do not be surprised if one room holds scarlet jackets, dark blue jackets and black ones side by side.

One note of caution: civilians should not copy shoulder boards, rank badges or medals onto a tuxedo. If you hold a state decoration and wish to wear its miniature, ask the organisers about protocol first, since rules differ from country to country.

A tailor's suggestion

If the tidy, disciplined look of a military evening uniform appeals to you, you can find it in a well-balanced short jacket, correct shoulders, high-waisted straight trousers and a dark satin stripe. Put together, those details make a very classic tuxedo, for example TUX-080 with its black satin peak lapel or TUX-010 with satin trim.

To go further back, read the origins of the tuxedo or check the conventions on our dress code page. When you are ready to choose the cut and cloth, our consultants will advise you in person; book a fitting here.