Quote Originally Posted by Jock Scot View Post
What is this "semi-formal" thing?

As this wedding is in Scotland, this also applies to the rest of the UK too. Formal(dress) day-wear is the morning suit= Kilt equivalent, black barathea silver buttoned argyll. Formal (dress) evening wear= PC, etc...


There is no such thing as semi-dress(semi-formal) in the UK. A lounge suit is a lounge suit and a tweed day jacket is the kilt equivalent and is not considered as "formal" or even "semi-formal"-------just, smart.. A beaten up up thirty year old tweed day jacket is, I suppose, a sports jacket equivalent. Although, I don't think there is really a kilt equivalent to a sports jacket.
It has become exceedingly difficult in North America to know what people mean when they identify orders of dress. The names of things have moved up the scale while the clothing itself has moved down the scale. In my non-kilted lingo, white tie and tails is formal, probably with a top-hat out of doors - morning suit during the day. Semi-formal was at one time what we called a dinner jacket - either white or black. Anything less was business suit.

Nowadays when I go into a menswear store and ask for a dress shirt (to go with my dinner jacket) they lead me over to business shirts - often button down, much to my disgust since it indicates that they don't know the names of what they are selling, or that they are assuming that I don't know the name of what I'm requesting. Either way I find it mildly offensive. I would never wear a buttondown even with a business suit, only with a sports jacket and slacks.

The result is that I have virtually no way of translating into kiltwear other than cumbersome descriptions of what I mean.

Jock - what do you refer to as a lounge suit? The other term with which I find myself unfamiliar is the "tattersall" referring to some form of shirt.

That's my rant for this morning!