USAF Full Dress Tux Top

[36-tex]

A simple, yet elequent tux jacket for a USAF officer. I paid $15 for it. It is missing one button.

[MAS36]

what type of occasion would they wear a top like that? maybe a Wedding?

[CNY Militaria]

I think they wore them for formal parties, weddings, etc. Does the AF still wear this type of Mess Dress?

[Lee Ragan]

That is the old style USAF Mess Dress for summer wear. The winter version just used a black jacket. These were replaced 15-20 years ago by a dark blue Mess Dress and I believe the shoulder boards changed at the same time.

These are worn at formal occasions such as a Dining In. Anyplace a civilian tux would be appropriate, these are worn. All services have these for officers and the Air Force and Marine Corps both have a mess dress uniform for enlisted. You hardly ever see an enlisted mess dress, but senior NCO's will sometimes have them.

By the way, there was a service hat to go with this jacket. It was white and the winter version was black. Now they have a dark blue service cap for wear with the mess dress uniforms.

USAF chevron collectors will sometimes find chevrons that are white on white and these were worn on this type white jacket back in the late 50's mid 60's time frame. Later USAF Mess Dress chevrons were silver bullion stripes on black and finally they had an updated set on the dark blue background.

This is probably more info than you wanted, but hey us collectors find all sorts of stuff!

[36-tex]

Lee, I have a couple white on white air force chevrons. Now I know what they were for. THANKS!