Formal Wear Primer

[Hap Hapablap]

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that someone as forward-thinking, brilliant and seemingly eccentric as Ravel would wear pumps with no socks. There was a lot of oddity in brilliance back then.

 

[Charlie Huang]

The notion of wearing pumps with bare feet like slippers fills me with dread...

I've had a few people (who should know better) think that red socks for evening dress is proper when I could not find a shread of evidence that it was so, notwithstanding the fact that it does not logically fit in with the scheme of black/white tie. Save the coloured socks for day wear or else you might as well wear your red trousers with your dress coat on the whim it might be more colourful...

Ravel maybe exercising an eccentricity, like Coward for his brown DJ. Does not necessary mean we should all follow suit...

 

[DocMustang]

Top hat and tux for a short man

Alright guys, yet another formal wear question. This regards headwear for a tuxedo. Before you all jump on me, I am aware that the traditional and proper headgear for a tux is the homburg.

I am an active mason, and among the lodge I have a reputation for dressing well and having a good deal of knowledge about clothing. (imagine!) The young man who was elected to be the Master of the Lodge next year asked me to help him assemble his first real tuxedo. Ok I may have volunteered as he is a good freind its kind of hazy..

My freind is a good deal shorter than I am and in fact at 5' 4'' stands several inches below every other member of the lodge. He is also quite thin, as such his tux needs to address these issues. The Master of a Masonic lodge holds a good deal of both real and symbolic power and his manner of dress should reflect this.

With some searching and with the help of a good tailor we were able to find a suitable peak lapel dinner jacket and trousers for well within his budget. The peak lapel is perfect and draws the eye upward and lends a feeling of both height and width to his small frame. He informed me that he prefers a vest over a cummerbund. After a brief discussion of options we settled on a white pique' vest with matching wing collar shirt which he has not purchased yet as it has been difficult to find one which fits.

This brings us to hats. We all know that to look right a hat must fit the face shape, shoulder width size and shape of the head. In his case there is an additional concern. The Master of a lodge wears a hat as a symbol of his authority and it should contribute to his "command presence". In his case I am not certain that a homburg would suit this purpose.

Given that there are some components of white tie in his ensemble as well as his short stature I thought a top hat (vintage of course!) in this isolated particular case would give him the height and presence he requires. My wife suggested an interesting alternative. She suggested a high crowned bowler or derby with a narrow brim as an alternative to both the homburg and the topper.

I know that when the tux was first gaining traction both the white vest and top hat were worn with the dinner jacket until the ensemble developed its own version of both shirt and hat. With that I leave it open to discussion: Homburg, Bowler or Topper?

 

[Rathdown]

If it is the tradition of your Lodge that the Master wear a top hat, then that's the end of the discussion. If the tradition was to wear a turban, then he'd wear a turban and be done with it. If, on the other hand, each and every Master wears what ever he pleases-- cowboy hats, beanies, Davy Crockett hats with raccoon tails, etc., then he's free to choose whatever pleases him.

As far as waistcoats go, I'd suggest a black waistcoat rather than white for two reasons, the first being that I have found from personal experience as Master of my Lodge that white waistcoats tend to get smudged by one's apron while at labour, can really take a hammering at the festive board, and in short order can look rather dirty-- not exactly the image a master should convey to the brothers assembled. The second reason is that while white waistcoats may have been commonly worn with tuxedo jackets in the first quarter of the last century, that practice really has fallen by the wayside. Black barathea evening waistcoats are part and parcel of modern Highland evening attire and can thus be easily obtained (they turn up regularly on eBay), and are far more suited to wear with evening attire.

With Best regards from the Master, Officers, and Brothers of Victoria Lodge, in the Grand Lodge of Ireland...
S&F
Rathdown

 

[Midnight Blue]

The guy is short - deal with it.

If tradition doesn't specifically call for a top hat then avoid it because it will look comical. Trying to make him taller by adding a 12" hat is pretty much the same as putting him in 12" patent leather platform shoes.

Instead, give him a commanding presence with a perfectly tailored, perfectly coordinated outfit like the one you described. The white pique waistcoat is a perfect touch - I do it from time to time and it looks outstanding. Especially with a red silk pocket square substituting for a boutonniere.

 

[Tomasso]

The guy is short - deal with it. Trying to make him taller by adding a 12" hat is pretty much the same as putting him in 12" patent leather platform shoes.

lol

 

[dhermann1]

I'm not a Mason, but I think Midnight Blue is right on the money. A top hat could easily look like he's trying to compensate for his height, and bring even more attention to it.
BTW, contrary to common belief here, a black homburg is not necessarily the only appropriate head gear for a tux. A black fedora is also perfectly fine (see Cary Grant in "Topper"). If you look at old movies all sorts of hat wear was used. I was just watching "After the Thin Man" the other night. One of the bad guys, the great Joseph Calleia, pops a gray homburg on his head at one point.
OK, so he was a bad guy, but he's the nightclub owner. He'd be sartorially appropriate if anyone was.

 

[DocMustang]

Thank you for the advice so far. One of the problems I perhaps failed to mention was that I know of very few sources for a correct, black waistcoat for wear with a dinner jacket. I happen to own one which I posted about earlier. One thing I was purposely trying to avoid was producing a tux for this gentleman "exactly" like mine. Our dinner jackets will be identical as they are the same model from the same manufacturer adding an identical vest would be so much similarity as to be comical.

I certainly had no intention of putting this young man into a 10" hat. I firmly believe in the power of proportion. I believe finding a reasonable crown height on a top hat would not look out of place both in scale and propriety. Past Masters in recent memory have chosen to wear a top hat rather than a homburg with their tux although the last 3 have chosen a homburg it would not be unusual to see in the least.

 

[dhermann1]

This should be suitable:

http://www.finetuxedos.com/tuxedo-vests/backless-low-cut-tuxedo-vest.html

 

[dnjan]

You are really suggesting that someone wearing a peak-lapel jacket would consider wearing a backless waistcoat???

 

[Marc Chevalier]

You are really suggesting that someone wearing a peak-lapel jacket would consider wearing a backless waistcoat???

Sure. Backless waistcoats were invented to keep their wearers cool when dancing, especially in warm climes. The Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor) popularized backless waistcoats in the 1920s.

 

[dnjan]

Shudder! The next thing will probably be clip-on suspenders!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Shudder! The next thing will probably be clip-on suspenders!

Come now. I've seen tons of vintage 1930s backless waistcoats, black and white, over the years. They look fine.


Are you also the fellow who thinks that cummerbunds with elastic belt backs and metal clasps (patented in 1924) are gauche? Try finding a cummerbund that actually wraps around the entire waist, like something out of "The Arabian Nights". It ain't around.

 

[dnjan]

What keeps the front from sagging (on the backless waistcoats)?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

What keeps the front from sagging (on the backless waistcoats)?

That's a good question. The inside bottom center of the waistcoat's front has a cotton or elastic vertically hanging tab with a buttonhole. (Old evening shirts have a vertical tab, too.) You button the tab to a button on the inside front of your trouser waistband (at the top of the fly opening). The buttoned tab keeps the waistcoat pulled tight.


Incidentally, the evening shirt's tab is buttoned onto the same trouser button. That poor button does double duty!

 

[dnjan]

thank you!
The backless waistcoats that I have encountered did not have such a tab.

 

[Tomasso]

Leonard Bernstein wore backless formal shirts when he conducted. He used to go through four of five of them in every performance.

 

[dhermann1]

I remember the opening night at Lincoln Center on TV. They have the brilliant conductor back stage at intermission. What pearls of wisdom drop from his lips? "Wow, I'm all sweated up!" And he really was.

 

[Charlie Huang]

Personally I do not like backless waistcoats as they do not hug the body like a full back one does so they tend to move about and billow because the sides are not anchored to the body thus free to move outwards away from the body, especially when you sit down. A better form if one must have a backless one is to get a full back and cut a big round hole in it. That way, the material at the sides and around the armhole to the neck and across the waist is still pulled back and connected with the body.

 

[MikeBravo]

I remember the opening night at Lincoln Center on TV. They have the brilliant conductor back stage at intermission. What pearls of wisdom drop from his lips? "Wow, I'm all sweated up!" And he really was.

Talk about "sweated up"! Take a look at big band drummer Gene Krupa