Look at these five men and notice that no two of them match. That is the whole point of mess dress. It appeared in the British Army around 1845, growing out of the short shell jacket officers had been wearing since 1831 — the working jacket, worn open over a regimental waistcoat for dinners and balls — and its original purpose was thrift. It was meant to be a comfortable and less expensive alternative to the stiff, elaborate full dress that evening functions otherwise demanded. What it became was the opposite. The jacket is short and cut close, in scarlet or dark blue or rifle green depending on the regiment; the overalls are high-waisted and tight and buckle under the boot; and everything that distinguishes one regiment from another has been loaded onto it — the facing colours on collar and cuffs, the embroidery on the waistcoat, the stripe down the leg. Then the First World War killed full dress outright, and mess kit was left holding all of it. It became the most colourful uniform most British and Commonwealth officers would ever own. Blue patrols pushed it aside for a while after the Second World War, until the old pattern was brought back in 1956. The economy option outlived the splendour it was an economy on, and officers still buy it themselves, out of their own pockets.

So the mismatch on this base is accurate rather than careless. Three of the officers wear scarlet with yellow facings and waistcoats over dark overalls with a red stripe; the fourth is in pale blue faced and laced with gold, over royal blue overalls — a different regiment entirely, standing at the same bar. The senior man on the right has gone white, put his hand on his hip and settled in. Behind the bar the mess steward is in black tails and white tie with a tray and a cloth, and the tankards are pewter. The carpet comes with the set. Its companion piece is The Snooker Table at the Officer's Mess, and the two make one room — the bar at one end, the table at the other. For the other side of that argument about coloured uniforms, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Imperial German Army is a boxful of full dress that stopped existing in August 1914 and never came back. And the Beefeaters are what happens when a uniform gives up on the field altogether and becomes pure ceremony.

Model: T106 / Tradition of London / 54mm (1/32) scale / 5 figures with bar and carpet

All hand painted Toy Soldier sets packed in the Classic Tradition Red Boxes. All Toy Soldiers cast in quality white metal, and individually hand painted in gloss enamels.

Please allow 2-3 weeks delivery.