PC equivalents and such

[Bigkahuna]

I am not positive about this, but I believe the Tuxedo is named for the Town in upstate New York where it made it's first U.S. appearence.

[McMurdo]

I am not positive about this, but I believe the Tuxedo is named for the Town in upstate New York where it made it's first U.S. appearence.

That is the general story. In the spring of 1886, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII of the United Kingdom) invited James Potter, a rich New Yorker and his wife, Cora Potter, to Sandringham House, his Norfolk hunting estate.

When Potter asked the Prince's dinner dress recommendation, he sent Potter to Henry Poole & Co., in London. On returning to New York in 1886, Potter's dinner suit proved popular at the Tuxedo Park Club; the club men copied him, soon making it their informal dining uniform. The evening dress for men now popularly known as a tuxedo takes its name from Tuxedo Park, where it was said to have been worn for the first time in the United States, by Griswald Lorillard at the annual Autumn Ball of the Tuxedo Club founded by Pierre Lorillard IV, and thereafter became popular for formal dress in America. Legend dictates that it became known as the tuxedo when a fellow asked another at the Autumn Ball, "Why does that man's jacket not have coattails on it?" The other answered, "He is from Tuxedo Park." The first gentleman misinterpreted and told all of his friends that he saw a man wearing a jacket without coattails called a tuxedo, not from Tuxedo.

In that case I suppose it could be said that the tuxedo while strictly not American was made popular in America.

Having said all that I would say the tuxedo would be patriotic enough or at least as patriotic as what anyone else would be wearing. Personally I would wear my kilt with the appropriate jacket and accessories as I would think even at a patriotic event dressing in formal Highland attire would be proper. If on the other hand you do not have the proper outfit perhaps a tuxedo would be the way to go.