Wearing decorations

The National Holiday, November 11 and the King's Feast are some of those occasions at which the King and the Royal Family, the judges and the magistrates and the veterans are almost the only people wearing their decorations.

The design of the decorations has hardly changed since the 19th century and therefore they are rather uncomfortable to wear on modern clothing. If pinning the recognition of one's merits on a man's jacket is already rather difficult, you can imagine the difficulty to pin them on women's clothing.

Wearing one's decorations decently can really be an obstacle race as any documentation on this subject is lacking. Consequently it is most useful to recall some elementary rules in order to wear one's decorations in the right way.

• In the presence of the King or a member of the Royal Family, unless other instructions have been prescribed, only the great modules of the honorary decorations are worn and never the miniature jewels nor the reduced versions with the colours of the ribbons.
• The decorations are pinned to the left of the chest, ranged from the centre in decreasing order of importance.
• Priority is given to the Belgian orders, spread in classes (grand-cross, grand officer, commander, officer, knight, palms and medals). There are three in decreasing order of importance: Leopold, Crown and Leopold II. Only one class per order is worn! (Tab. I)

	Officer	Knight	Golden Palms	Silver Palms	Gold Medal	Silver Medal	Bronze Medal
Order of Leopold*			Not applicable
Crown de Order
Order of Leopold II			Not applicable

(*) Only the military category, with crossed swords, is represented here. The civilian category, without crossed swords, follows the same rules.

• The veterans who are holder of both military and civilian decorations will give priority to their military decorations putting forward respectively those for acts of bravery or devotion, those for the Second World War and the Korean War, those for seniority and finally the other decorations.
• The official foreign orders are worn in chronological order of attribution next to the Belgian national orders. The other official foreign decorations are worn in chronological order of attribution next to the official Belgian decorations.

• Wearing a foreign order must be allowed by the King. The foreign orders are worn next to the Belgian and according to the date of attribution. No military in service is allowed to wear a foreign decoration without a royal authorization.
• Een militair in actieve dienst mag geen buitenlandse eervolle onderscheiding dragen zonder Koninklijke toestemming.
• The Belgian decorations which have not been created by law of royal decree are not officially recognized, even if they have been established by another official authority (region, province, town, municipality…), by an acknowledged institution (Red Cross, fire brigade service…) or by a patriotic, philanthropic or other association. Wearing them next to all other decorations is however allowed, except for the military in active service, providing there can be no confusion with the official decorations. The holders of official decorations will only wear them at events directly related to the institution that decorated them.
• The decorations of international organizations to which Belgium adheres (NATO, European Union, OSCE,) are assimilated to Belgian decorations but are worn next to them.