Now that the Corps has a new female dress blue coat it plans to shelve the old one.
In a message to the force posted on Thursday, the Corps said the female dress blue coat with white shirt and necktab would become “obsolete” by Sept. 30, 2022.
In the meantime, female Marines can choose between the old female coat and the new dress blue which features a mandarin collar.
After Sept. 2022, the new female mandarin collar dress blue coat will become the required dress coat, the MARADMIN said.
In August, female recruits with Platoon 4040, Papa Company, 4th Recruit Training Battalion, were the first ever company to be issued the new dress blue coat.
The Corps spent several years trying to flush out its new women’s dress coat. In 2016, the Marines pushed out a message that it was planning to adopt a modified version of the dress coat.
The new coat features the high mandarin collar that is sported on the male dress coat. The push to adopt a coat similar to the male uniform came as the U.S. military was amid plans to open combat jobs and units to women.
Then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus supported a more gender-neutral uniform and said he wanted uniforms that "don’t divide us as male or female, but rather unite us as sailors or Marines.”
A poll conducted by the Corps highlighted that female Marines were generally approving of new female coat prototype.
Shawn Snow is the senior reporter for Marine Corps Times and a Marine Corps veteran.
