In summer at MoD I regularly wore civvy short-sleeved shirts of assorted colours (with tie) under my suit. In office, discarded jacket and got on with work. Nobody ever commented. Jacket on when called in to 1* and above, of course!

Opinion is clearly divided :)

I rate operational efficiency higher than sartorial perfection, although I also do the latter :D

For once I actually agree with Beagle.

I wouldn’t worry about the shade - my first 1-Star never did. He had tailored shirts from Hong Kong that were so pale they weren’t that far from off-white.

As for me, if I’m in civilian attire and heading into MoD I’ll usually go for a suit, but in hot weather have been known to turn up in a rather fetching very soft gingham open collared shirt with sleeves turned up to mid-forearm, chinos and whatever footwear I can find in the wardrobe that goes. Nobody batted an eyelid and I found it amusing watching the suited and booted brigade clearly only a couple of steps from heatstroke with their ties done up on the hottest day of the year. As the great Billy Connolly said, there’s no such thing as the wrong weather, just the wrong clothes.

Heard on the grapevine today that a 65% Cotton shirt is on its way with a thicker material. Understood to be in stock maybe by Christmas - ho, ho, ho...

So that is good news, just need to sort the rest of the ensemble :ok:

[QUOTEUnfortunately the smart barathea No2 had been replaced by that dreadful Thunderbirds jacket thing, so most people went for the woolly pully + giant moth option.[/QUOTE]

The first many of us saw of this particular jacket was in c1976 when the, then, and later quasi infamous, Gp Capt Peter Harding arrived at Brüggen wearing the same.