Formal wear

= Day (before 6 p.m.) = Evening (after 6 p.m.)    = Bow tie colour = Ladies = Gentlemen Formal wear or full dress is the Western dress code category applicable for the most formal occasions, such as weddings, christenings, confirmations, funerals, Easter and Christmas traditions, in addition to certain state dinners, audiences, balls, and horse racing events.

The protocol indicating particularly men's traditional formal wear has remained virtually unchanged since the early 20th century.

Despite decline following the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains observed in formal settings influenced by Western culture: notably around Europe, the Americas, South Africa, Australia, as well as Japan.

Notably, if a level of flexibility is indicated (for example "uniform, morning coat or lounge suit", such as seen to the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018), the hosts tend to wear the most formal interpretation of that dress code in order to save guests the inconvenience of out-dressing.

From these social conventions derive in turn also the variants worn on related occasions of varying solemnity, such as formal political, diplomatic, and academic events, in addition to certain parties including award ceremonies, balls, fraternal orders, high school proms, etc.

By the Age of Revolution in the Late Modern era, it was replaced by the previously-casual country leisure wear-associated front cutaway dress coat around the 1790s-1810s.

However, the dress coat from the transition period was maintained as formal evening wear in the form of white tie, remaining so until this day.

The only outer coat prescribed for both black- and white-tie events is the army blue cape with branch colour lining.

[6] 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 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.

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

The woman on the left displays a more romantic modern approach and Lourett Russell Grant on the right wears the most formal dress with evening gloves.
Diplomatic reception in West Germany (1961); the Danish ambassador wears a red diplomatic uniform , the British ambassador a dark one.
Heads of government wearing frock coats at the formal signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919