Kilts and Military Uniforms

[Kriegbert]

I retired from the US Navy in 2017 after 30 years of service. I was wondering what the general experience was with mixing military uniforms with kilts. I’m specifically considering the mess dress jackets to wear with a kilt. Here are the two jackets in question:





I’m not interested in debating what’s “correct”…after 30 years, I’ll wear
what I want and anyone who wants to report me to the Navy is welcomed to. I was just curious if this was a common practice or if I’m really being a rebel.

Thanks!

I do have a question for you, that you might be able to answer, now that you brought it up. I was looking at an early 20th century us navy uniform plate, with prescriptions of proper uniforms. There was a white mess jacket (sans tails) labelled mess dress & a blakc tailcoat (with full tails) labelled evening dress. Both had gilt buttons, & much like the images you posted in first post, the black evening uniform had sleeve embroidery whilst the white mess jacket did not.

What's the distinction between mess dress & evening dress in the navy? (or military in general)? Up until now, I had thought the terms (in the context of uniforms) evening dress & mess dress were the same & interchangeable (I do realize what the term "mess" is in the context of what you wear for eating, but I also figured evening functions invariably involve the same thing).

Does the navy still have separate evening & mess dress uniforms? I do know (I can’t remember the exact year, but it was around the time of the korean war or just before) the uniforms across the board were dramatically simplified (same reform that abolished the knee-length formal day navy frock coat)

Do let us civvies know, maybe steve ashton (retired marine) could also enlighten us regarding his branch as well.