The Service Dress White Uniform (SDW) for a female Chief Petty Officer (CPO) may be pre-scribed for wearing during the Summer at functions and ceremonies when the more formal uniforms—Dinner Dress, Full Dress, and Formal Dress—are not prescribed and at which civilians would wear coat and tie.
In a move to make male and female uniforms more gender-neutral and integrate women more fully into the service, the Female SDW coat was recently redesigned to closely resemble the coat that’s been worn for decades by male personnel. First made available at Navy Exchanges in January 2017, the new Female SDW coat is still single-breasted, but the old peaked lapel design was replaced with a standing collar (also called a Mandarin collar) like the one found on the Male SDW coat. It also features six U.S. Navy eagle gilt buttons and two princess seams, as opposed to the five buttons and two button-down breast pockets on the male version.
Our SDW Uniform Builder for Female CPOs includes all of the basic components as well as some of the most common optional wear items, and you can learn more about individual items of the SDW by clicking on their images below. Note: If a basic component is not displayed in the Builder, it means we are currently out of stock of the item.