Protection. The equipment and clothing must provide the competitor with the maximum protection compatible with the freedom of movement necessary for fencing.
Safety. It must not be possible for the opponent to be be obstructed or injured by the equipment, nor for the opponent’s weapon to be caught up in or deflected by the equipment which, in consequence, must have neither buckles nor openings in which the opponent’s point may be caught up – except accidentally – and thus held or deflected. The jacket and its collar must be completely buttoned or done up.
Characteristics of the clothing. Fencers’ clothing must be made of sufficiently robust material and be clean and in good condition.
In order that the judging of hits should be facilitated as far as possible, the material from which the equipment is made must not have a surface which is smooth enough to cause the point d’arrêt, the button or the opponent’s hit to glance off (cf. m.30 Épée: Mask)
Clothing must be made entirely in cloth able to resist a pressure of 800 Newtons. Very particular attention must be paid to the way the seams under the armpits, if there are any, are made. An undergarment consisting of a protective under-plastron covering the vital upper areas of the body (following the design given in Annexe A to these Rules, ‘Safety norms for manufacturers’) resistant to 800 Newtons is also obligatory.
Fencers’ clothing may be of different colours, but on the body it must be a single colour, white or a light shade.
Jacket. At all weapons, for men and ladies, the lower edge of the jacket must overlap the breeches by at least 10 cm when the fencer is in the on-guard position (cf. m.28, m.34 Conductive Jackets).
The jacket must include a lining making a double thickness of material for the sleeve down to the elbow of the sword arm and covering the flank up to the armpit. At èpèe the fencer is required to wear a regulation jacket, which must cover the whole of the surface of the trunk.
Ladies’ equipment must, furthermore, include breast protectors made of metal or some other rigid material.
Breeches. The breeches must be fastened below the knees.
With breeches, the fencer must wear socks which cover the legs right up to the breeches, These socks must be held up in such a way that they cannot fall down.
The fencer is permitted to wear socks with a turn-over showing the colours of the national team 10 cm high.
Glove. At all weapons, the gauntlet of the glove must, in all circumstances, fully cover approximately half the forearm of the competitor’s sword arm to prevent the opponent’s blade entering the sleeve of the jacket.
Mask. The mask must be made with meshes (space between the wires) of a maximum 2.1 mm and from wires with a minimum gauge of 1 mm diameter.
Masks, at all weapons, must be made in accordance with the safety standards described in Annexe A to these Rules and must carry the quality label specified in those standards.
When the checks are carried out the person responsible for them may, if in doubt, ensure that the mesh of the mask, both at the front and at the sides, is able to withstand, without permanent deformation, the introduction into the mesh of a conical instrument, the angle of the code being at 4o to the axis and at a pressure of 12 Kg.
A mask which does not comply with the safety requirements laid down in this article will be rendered visibly unusable by the weapon checking personnel or the Referee in the presence of the person who presented the mask to the weapon check or the team captain of the fencer concerned.
The bib of the mask must be made with cloth resistant to 1600 Newtons.
