MANILA, Philippines — I am not a very formal person, and an invitation which says “dress: formal” always makes me think twice.

When I was growing up on the other side of the world, in England in the old days, there were three types of formal dress for men. “Black tie” or the dinner jacket was actually relatively new. The more traditional evening wear was “white tie and tails” — a black tail coat. Then there was “Morning Dress – grey tail-coats.

The black tail coat is now only found on hotel staff, but morning dress is still the fashionable thing to be married in. Visit the church of any English town on a Saturday, the favourite day for weddings, and you will see plenty of men in rented morning suits.

When I was elected to be an officer of the Oxford Union, I was shocked to find out that I had to wear white tie and tails for the meetings. I didn’t have this and I certainly couldn’t afford to buy it. My mother found an ancient suit in the wardrobe of an old uncle, and he kindly loaned it to me. Even with the shoulder padding removed it was very tight, and I did not dare move my arms very much whilst I was wearing it, but fortunately I just had to sit behind a desk during the meetings.

Here in Manila I like to wear a Barong for formal occasions. Not too hot, loose enough to dance in – a perfect invention.

For women, of course, formal dress is much more important. Some ladies like to wear long gowns, and I must say that it is an impressive sight to see those gowns massed at the cocktails before a ball. But when the invitation says “long gown” some ladies cheat. They wear long gowns with slits which show the legs, or the bottom part of the dress is transparent, or they simply ignore the rules and wear short gowns.

I pointed this out to a Filipina friend, who replied “You men don’t understand. She thinks she is still young, and she thinks her legs look good, so she wants to show them off. Sadly, she is wrong on both counts.” A couple of years ago I saw a radical version of a formal gown.

The top half of the woman was really traditional and formal – a piña terno. The bottom half was a denim mini-skirt. The wearer was certainly young, but she clearly did not have a good mirror as she had legs that a chicken would have been ashamed of.

Isn’t it an odd world that we live in?