Collars

[Marc Chevalier]

Round ("club") collars look bad on people with round faces.

In Chile, all schoolgirls wear uniforms. The uniform for girls includes a white dress shirt with a round collar. When I lived there, I once wore a "Brooks Brothers" round collar shirt with a suit; you can imagine the trouble that got me into. Folks called me "the schoolgirl".

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Speaking of collars getting no respect ...

Just want to say that SPREAD ("cutaway") COLLARS were popular in the 1930s. In fact, they have been around since the mid-19th century. Queen Victoria's son (later Edward VII) wore spread collars regularly, as did President Theodore Roosevelt. They left the spotlight in the 'teens and '20s, only to experience a strong resurgence in the 1930s, thanks largely to the Prince of Wales.

James Cagney wore spread-collar shirts in the '30s movies The Public Enemy and, I believe, The Roaring Twenties. APPAREL ARTS QUARTERLY and ESQUIRE featured these collars regularly in their fashion plates. Spread collars were considered de rigueur for bankers and Wall Streeters. In the '30s, they were always sold as detachable, stiff collars ... not as an entire shirt. More often than not, these spread collars (always in white) were to be worn on colored or striped collarless shirts, creating a dressy contrast effect.


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[Fu Manchu]

About that collar...

I like collar bars... though the buttodown combo... hmmm no!

I do like Cary Grant's Buttondown and French cuff combo.

Nowadays I'm starting to lean more toward the round collar with beer and a cell phone.

Is that detachable, or just part of a really nifty shirt?

Fu Manchu

 

[ArrowCollarMan]

I think I forgot to ask a question: why did the upturned collars (like the wing collar) go out of style? What made folded collars so popular and why do they persist to be the collar of today?

 

[shindeco]

I think I forgot to ask a question: why did the upturned collars (like the wing collar) go out of style? What made folded collars so popular and why do they persist to be the collar of today?

Fashion and the lack of someone else to do your laundry.

Stand up collars need to be starched stiff to hold their shape. It's actually not that hard to do but most people don't like doing laundry so ...

Fold over collars don't need that strength of stiffness (they're folded over so they're twice as thick, obviously). People decided the soft collars were more comfortable and when shirts with attached collars began to make it big (another laundry issue--washing machines made it easier) the stiff collar faded away.

There were a lot of stiff fold over collars, too but they take a lot more effort to put on and get a tie through (I wear them sometimes so that comes from my personal experience; others may disagree with me).

Shirts with attached, soft collars are just easier.

 

[ArrowCollarMan]

Upturned collars there days are attached. I wonder why they didn't follow suit?

 

[shindeco]

Upturned collars there days are attached. I wonder why they didn't follow suit?

I think that by the time interfacing quality improved enough to get away without starching, it was a fashion thing. Stand up collars were just seen as too old fashioned. They made a brief resurgence in the 80s (when I first got hooked on them) but it was more of a fad.

That's what brought them back for evening wear, though. No one wore wing tip collars with evening wear in the 60s and 70s (well ... very very few people!)