So our new Grand Master wants us to wear a tuxedo to his reception on Saturday. I used to enjoy putting on my Tux and did not mind fussing with the shirt studs and cuff links. I always liked wearing this attire. 
Black tie dates from 1860, when Henry Poole & Co. (Savile Row's founders - just off Bond Street, historically London's high-end fashion shopping centre) created a short smoking jacket for the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII of the United Kingdom) to wear to informal dinner parties as an alternative towhite tie dress—the standard formal-wear. At that time, lounge suits were starting to be worn in the country, and the new dress code was an evening lounge suit intended for use in a relaxed atmosphere out of town.
In the spring of 1886, the Prince invited James Potter, a rich New Yorker, and his wife, Cora Potter, to Sandringham House, his Norfolk hunting estate. When Potter asked the Prince's dinner dress recommendation, he sent Potter to Henry Poole & Co., in London. On returning to New York in 1886, Potter's dinner suit proved popular at the Tuxedo Park Club; the club men copied him, soon making it their informal dining uniform. The evening dress for men now popularly known as a tuxedo takes its name from Tuxedo Park, where it was said to have been worn for the first time in the United States, by Griswald Lorillard at the annual Autumn Ball of the Tuxedo Club founded by Pierre Lorillard IV, and thereafter became popular for formal dress in America. Legend dictates that it became known as the tuxedo when a fellow asked another at the Autumn Ball, "Why does that man's jacket not have coattails on it?" The other answered, "He is from Tuxedo Park." The first gentleman misinterpreted and told all of his friends that he saw a man wearing a jacket without coattails called a tuxedo, not from Tuxedo.
You can read the entire article here. I had no idea there was so much involved with wearing Black Tie.
7 comments:
that was splendid reading.
I like the Sunset Blvd approach to tuxes
"Won't wear a tux !"
"Of course not, dear,tuxedos are for waiters!"
It never ceases to gall me that people think "black tie" is somehow "formal." Genuine formal wear is comprised of a gray cutaway jacket and hickory-striped trousers during the daytime, and white tie and tailcoat after 5:00 p.m. Even the WORD "tuxedo" is an unfortunate colloquialism, as you point out so clearly. Don't even get me started on "gentlemen" who refuse to learn to tie their own bow ties, or who wear fraudulent, open-backed half-waistcoats! Cummerbunds, sketchy as they are, are preferable to the latter.
So there! Nobody ever said I wasn't opinionated!
Well you got me. open back half waistcoat and phony tie is my preference.
I kinda like an open collar and jeans myself. Lord knows I have worn a tux enough, though. If you are going to wear long sleeves AND a full backed half waistcoat AND a jacket, and then insist on closing the top button so a tie, whether phony or tied on manually, then it damned well better be about 55°F in the room. That's why that kind of clothing was originated in a land with cold weather and poor heaters.
Oh well, I'll wear the long sleeves and the coat, but probably a phony tie and a backless vest. But you can bet that I will be wearing my cowboy boots underneath.
And Don's ABSOLUTELY right about why these rigs were invented in the first place! Any time I can avoid wearing a necktie I do, so when I MUST don such apparel, I'll wear a real one. Besides, real ones tend to fit better and be cheaper to buy.
Good heavens, I've become pompous in my dotage!
You are FAR from your dotage my friend. I have had a most interesting day today due to our e-mail conversation.
Actually, I have found that the "real" bow ties are more expensive than the phony ones. Regular four in hand neck ties are, or can be, pretty cheap. So why is the real bow tie so much more expensive than regular ones? They use 20% as much material. Yes, they are a bit trickier to sew together, but not that much.
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