Uniform Numbers
The British army numbers its uniforms for ease of instruction. Fourteen 'orders' of dress are authorised and prescribed to be worn on various occasions; "Full Dress" is also prescribed for the most important ceremonies.
While there are officially fifteen different grades (or 'Numbers'), many of these are rarely worn or phased out altogether. Note that uniform distinctions can vary greatly from one Regiment or Corps to another, and the following descriptions are a generalisation.
Read more about this topic: British Army Uniform
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“Iconic clothing has been secularized.... A guardsman in a dress uniform is ostensibly an icon of aggression; his coat is red as the blood he hopes to shed. Seen on a coat-hanger, with no man inside it, the uniform loses all its blustering significance and, to the innocent eye seduced by decorative colour and tactile braid, it is as abstract in symbolic information as a parasol to an Eskimo. It becomes simply magnificent.”
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