@postgradmess,
The person to answer attire questions is the Secretary or Master of the Hunt you are capping with because hunts differ in their expectations and formality, even which days are considered informal/ratcatcher days.
Every hunt can have their idiocyncrasies of attire (like rust breeches for ODH and RH) and pet peeves. MOST hunts that understand that they need to be welcoming and inviting to new members emphasize neat and tidy and mounted on an appropriate horse above all else. (No one would expect you to go out and buy new rust breeches or something similarly idioscyncratic just to cap with their hunt.) Oak Ridge Hunt prefaces its attire requirements with āThe following is to assist you but The Master realizes it may take time to put yourself together.ā The Secretary or the Master is the final authority, not a self appointed turnout prefect in the field.
As a young professional in a pretty snooty hunt country, I wore my pinstriped show coat and choker for cubbing, and a black frock coat for EVERYTHING else. No one said a word to to me about either, and believe me, there were turnout Nazis on patrol. That fact that the horse and I were immaculately clean, my boots were polished, I was on time and polite counted for way more than wearing a frock coat without having colors.
The old distinction about field boots not being appropriate for hunting is not well followed either, and no on has ever chastised me for wearing field boots hunting. If I am able to hunt more in the next couple years, I would love to get dress boots, but no one would expect me to buy a separate pair of boots for hunting 12 X a year.
As far as the gender based clothing stuff; I am a large, busty, broad shouldered woman and I wear menās coats because itās easier to find something that fits. No one has ever questioned which way my coat buttoned either.
The post that started this conversation was about black patent tops on boots. Thatās a totally different issue, because wearing the tops is a privlege that comes with earning colors. To clarify: I wear a lovely Horse Coutnry menās tweed that I found in a consignment shop. It looks great, no one cares that itās a manās coat or that it was bought used. However, if I found a scarlet coat with colors in the same consignment shop and wore that hunting, people WOULD care. I would be misrepresenting my experience and my relationship with the hunt.
Please just go hunting and have a wonderful time.
