Agreed, up until the bow tie.

I do like them and when else the fuck do you get a chance a to sport one?

I prefer a plain white shirt with double cuffs.

Funny Higgins story here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6qRN43ABww

Peggy Mount was worse. You would not want to get on the wrong side of her.

Last edited by Chet (2016-06-23 09:30:21)

I've never been a fan either, I avoid them and always have and Mr Mount is right about the wine and food at such events. I much prefer a small, select audience of the inner sanctum at a decent restaurant where you can spend the whole evening. I don't like large formal events, nor do I like cosy house parties that always seem a bit intrusive.

That was an interesting perspective. I don't own a black tie rig. The need just never comes up for me in SoCal. I did attend a "black tie optional" New Year's Eve Party at a yacht club in the recent past. Most of the black tie rigs were not very well done. I never saw so many pre-tied bowties in my life! And these were yachtsmen, most of them. You'd think they, if anybody could master tying a bowtie. Or maybe they all tied their bowties so perfectly I just thought they were pre-tied (but I doubt it). I have always thought pleated shirts and studs looked fussy. I know that bare-knuckle boxers commonly wore pumps in their "mills," but these days don't they look just a trifle effeminate? In all, the whole rig just seems very "penguin-y" to me.

As for women being in their gowns while men "just wear some workaday business suit," wasn't the whole point of men's formal wear going to black and white in the 19th century to provide a muted contrast to the women's gowns. How is an elegant, well-tailored suit going to demean the formality of the event in contrast to what amounts to a suit with trouser stripes and lapel facings? Besides, for the vast majority of the male population, at least in the States, suits are no longer "workaday" attire.

^Notch-lapel DJs existed in the pre-WWI era. They did survive into the "Golden Age" of the interwar years, and they have been in widespread vogue for at least the past half-century. Perhaps it is time that we stopped regarding them as an affront to civilization and a heinous breach of good taste.