White tie (or full dress, evening dress, full evening dress; slang top hat and tails or white tie and tails, tailsuit, tails) is the most formal evening dress code in Western fashion. It is worn to ceremonial occasions such as state dinners in some countries, as well as to very formal balls and evening weddings. The chief components for men are the black dress coat commonly known as an evening tailcoat, white bow tie, white waistcoat and starched wing collar shirt, while women wear a suitable dress for the occasion, such as an evening gown.
As evening dress, white tie is traditionally considered correct only after 6 p.m. although some etiquette authorities allow for it anytime after dark even if that means prior to 6 p.m. (though there are some exceptions.) The equivalent formal attire for daytime events is called morning dress. The semi-formal evening counterpart of white tie is black tie.
Read more about White Tie: History, Related Forms of Dress
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or tie:
“Soft are the hands of Love,
but what soft hands
clutched at the thorny ground,
scratched like a small white ferret
or foraging whippet or hound.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Not because Socrates has said it, but because it is really in my nature, and perhaps a little more than it should be, I look upon all humans as my fellow-citizens, and would embrace a Pole as I would a Frenchman, subordinating this national tie to the common and universal one.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)