'On the town'. Immaculate 501s with knife-edge creases front and rear, trainers/desert boots. Well-fitting sweat shirt bearing strange military hieroglyphics - worn irrespective of how cold it might be.

If you dressed members of the three services in exactly the same combat kit they would look smart, but very different - more so if you'd allowed them time to alter the clothing. Particularly amongst Army regiments, the way clothing is worn can, to a military eye attuned to such things, be radically different. Take the simple beret: red or green bereted units, and RAF Regiments, take enormous trouble shrinking them to just the right shape, whilst others (senior officers of all three services have been observed thus) wear them like dustbin lids, as issued. Armoured regiments, who once wore headphones over their berets, favour a ducks arse beret shape, while others cultivate a rakish dash, wearing the badge over their left eye. Different ranks smarten up their uniforms in  different ways: narrowing combat suit  trousers slashing the peaks of hats (emulating Guards drill sergeants), or putting creases everywhere including on pullovers, even to the extent of sewing them in to save ironing time.

The basic DPM combat jacket spawns very different variants: parachute smock, flying jacket, arctic windproof and so on. It often seems that the whole point of uniform is to distinguish the individual from the herd rather than to submerge him or her into it, and the British in particular have always led the world in this endeavour. Surely no other army would tolerate so many different 'official' shades of khaki in its shirts and ties; so many different designs of pullover, or so many minor eccentricities of plumage, badges or berets?

Sartorial anarchy
This apparent anarchy, a well-established subversion practised by the various service and regimental dress committees, is part of the psychology of the British armed forces. In Wellington's army, it was a cult (particularly among the Staff) for officers going into battle to wear frock coats and top hats. The modern British 'cult' of military fashion is far more practical - that of 'improving' on the issued uniform, particularly outdoor wear. Civilian salesmen of non-regulation rucksacks, parkas and climbing boots report that a high proportion of their mail order trade is fuelled by the dissatisfaction felt by serving soldiers with official products. "As long as it's camouflaged and tactical", they will tell you, "a soldier will be happier with an item he's chosen and bought for himself, than one that's come down to him through the normal logistic chain." They gloss over the fact that although this gear may be good, it is also very expensive.

In combat even more than on exercise, there is a readiness to adopt items of clothing or equipment that make up in quality, usefulness and panache for what they may lack in official sponsorship. For example, the proliferation of fly whisks, cravats and face veils in the Eight Army after Alamein was a conscious attempt to assert credibility and desert lore against an imperial military machine that was still officially loyal to the comic-opera Victorian pith helmet or "solar topee".

On parade
Parade uniforms are a different story. Only on UN duties (and with some elite units in low risk areas) does uniform retain its ancient aim of advertising and emphasising the presence of troops - rather than concealing it. Brazenly distinctive, peacock-like ceremonial dress is relegated to the parade ground, and perceived as having nothing to do with the professional purpose of the armed forces - which is why no British service man or women would spend their own money on it. The bearskinned, red-coated guardsmen standing to attention outside British or Danish royal palaces; the French president's Gardes Republicains; the US president's Marine Corps Honor Guard; the Swiss Guards in the Vatican, are all symbols of the State - chocolate box rather than action man. It can be embarrassing; London bobbies protect British Foot Guards exposed to the depredations of tourists at Admiralty Arch (stealing their buttons making indecent suggestions, slipping hotel keys and telephone numbers into their pockets...); the wearing of flak jackets would spoil the whole effect.

Working dress
Most of the time, service people wear casual 'working dress'; overalls for dirty tasks, and pullovers for office and other tasks. Like ceremonial uniform, nobody seeks to spend their own money on this form of dress - even though it is what most people wear, most of the time. This type of uniform equates with the uniforms that exist in Civvie Street, provided by employers, for employees with little say (or interest) in the manner of its wearing - and no desire to pay for it. Many civilian employers follow the military view that uniform livery and standard grooming help instill a military sort of orderliness. British Rail did much to counter the legendary surliness of its employees by forcing them to toe this particular line.

However, civilian uniforms are actually only for show. Without special selection and training, such uniformed bodies as Burger King staff would not continue working under incoming enemy fire. For all their regimentation and uniformity, civilians are simply not trained to operate under such stressful conditions. The armed forces, however are highly complex hierarchical organisations, expected to function at high levels of bureaucratic excellence under extremely stressful conditions - which can be described, in comparison with other sartorially regimented groups of people (the City for example), as 'bureaucracies for danger'. The psychological qualities required of service people, are shaped by factors for which a uniform is a mere outward symbol.

"Civvies"
There are very clearly identifiable military off-duty uniforms. In Camberley and Aldershot, off-duty Gurkhas are rigorously uniformed and distinctive in their 'casual' blazers and regimental ties, completely contradicting the idea of their wearers merging inconspicuously into the general population, or of 'relaxing' in their spare time. At Dartmouth and Sandhurst, there are (in addition to the official regulations) unwritten rules for cadet etiquette and dress 'ashore'. In the early 70s, parolled Sandhurst cadets were required to wear jacket, tie and trilby, the latter being abandoned in the hedge immediately on negotiating the Gate Guard. (On returning, you took pot luck with whatever hats were left.) As one might expect of the more egalitarian Parachute Regiment, the rank difference in civvie clothing was addressed head-on, creating a distinctive off-duty uniform for all ranks under and possibly including captain - of sweater, optional shirt, corduroy trousers, optional socks, and a particular type of desert boot. (The Royal Marines had a similar 'all ranks' code.)

Higher rank implied less time spent in the regimentally defined watering holes of Aldershot Town, more time with the family and other diversions, and so the adoption of a higher code of dress. Guards officers particularly, have such a 'higher code' in their "London Uniform": bowler hat, brolly, pinstripe suit et al. Other slightly less up-market variants of 'officer kit' include the artfully casual 'Sloane Ranger' styles, or the distinctly 50's rig of belted yellow macintosh (now considered very chic in the upper echelons of society in Dallas Texas) trilby, suit double breasted. and stalwart veldtschoen. Such clothes make a strong social statement, about the class to which the wearer belongs or aspires, and even to the particular decade of whichever golden age they would have preferred to have lived in.

Unwritten rules
The rules for these widely differing 'civvie-type' uniforms are absolute, yet undefined - to the total confusion of outsiders, foreigners and potential usurpers. (Woe betide the insurance salesman who believes that a Guards tie goes rather well with his Van Heusen shirt.) Perhaps the one clearly defined rule relates to white socks, which, assuming you aspire to any sort of rank, are socially acceptable only for squash or tennis. Admittedly not everybody adheres to civvie dress regulations; all rules may be broken with panache and sufficient elan. At least one student at the Army staff college has worn leather trousers off-duty (and, doubtless because of this, encouragingly is now a brigadier). However, for many service people civilian uniform seems to be a common way of bringing the job home, and having it influence one's free time.

So where does the crisp blazer, regimental or squadron tie, trilby hat (all of which cost good money) come into the psychology of military preparedness? Once service people have achieved genuine esprit de corps - normally without much help from dress codes - it seems that there is still a need for outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. Why? Dress habits are deeply ingrained - particularly through training. The same high standards applied to the wearing of uniforms, are applied to the wearing of civvies - with inherent unfashionability, and an in-built time-warp of one decade plus. There are advantages: eg always being on the right side of entry regulations of such establishments as insist upon "No cut-offs, T-shirts or trainers". Being deliberately unfashionable is easier than trying to keep up and with everybody wearing the same spotted or unit ties, striped shirts and MOD pinstripes, the competitive side (the "power dressing" of modern business) becomes restricted to more tangible factors, like cut, cloth and crease.

More importantly, in spite of 25 years of IRA targetting, Service people actually do want to stand out from the rest of the populace. There is an invisible but very real psychological threshold that civilians cannot cross, established by the various and demanding rites of passage Servicepeople have endured, and the discipline of the lifestyle they choose to follow.

Like a masonic fraternity, military people do get on together - and enjoy recognising one another, which is probably why unofficial civvie uniform survives. Off-duty, service people themselves, benefit by recognising others of the same ilk - by the cut of a blazer, the contradiction of knife-edge creases on a pair of immaculate Levi 501's, the regimental heraldrv of a tie, or the purposeful hieroglyphics of an otherwise incomprehensible squadron sweat shirt.