Black tie
Black tie, also known in the United Kingdom (and also in the north-eastern United States, and Canada) as a dinner jacket and in the United States generally as a tuxedo, is a dress code for formal evening events that are not formal enough to require white tie.
History
The American name tuxedo is taken from Tuxedo Park, New York, a private club of country houses founded by Pierre Lorillard, the tobacco heir. (The town of Tuxedo and Tuxedo Park themselves were named by the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who called the largest lake in the area tucseto, meaning either place of the bear or clear flowing water.) Traditionally, the first Autumn Ball, held at the Tuxedo Club in October 1886, marked the official first American appearance of the English dinner jacket, which was favored by the fast sporting crowd round the Prince of Wales, who liked to wear a "Cowes" jacket, somewhat like a formal mess jacket, first at dinner aboard his yacht during the regattas held at Cowes, and then later at other evening entertainments, though never in London. The original single- breasted model was simply a tailcoat without a tail, worn with a white piqué vest as would be worn with a tailcoat, then later with a black vest ensuite with the jacket and trousers.
At the 1886 Tuxedo Park Autumn Ball, Pierre Lorillard's young son Griswold Lorillard and his friends startled guests, all in white tie and tailcoats, by wearing the new English dinner jackets, with scarlet evening vests. The tailless coats were similar in cut to hunting pinks worn in daytime at foxhunting meets. When after 1889, gentlemen in "tuxedos" were even admitted to the Dress Circle at the new Metropolitan Opera, the success of the new fashion was made.
A Tuxedo Park insider recalls a different story of the Tuxedo Park introduction of black tie, told him in the 1920s by Grenville Kane, the last founding member of the Tuxedo Club. Kane remembered that it had been James Brown Potter who, after staying with the Prince of Wales at Sandringham in the summer of 1886, brought back the new fashion to Tuxedo and introduced it to the members of the club[1] (http://www.votuxpk.com/History/GrizzysLarkAndALegend.htm).
Early evening clothes were uniformly black. The Duke of Windsor, when Prince of Wales, introduced midnight blue as an appropriate color, and even made the double-breasted dinner jacket acceptable.
The waist sash called cummerbund (or cumberbund) was borrowed after World War I, from military dress in British India.
What it is
In the days when evening dress was worn every evening, black tie developed as a form of evening dress of which the components did not require costly frequent laundering and starching, unlike white tie.
Black tie leaves a lot to the wearer's discretion compared to the far more codified white tie (e.g. single- versus double-breasted coat). Nonetheless, so far as a convention exists, it is that black tie properly consists of:
- Black short coat with silk lapels (peaked or shawl-collared), usually without vents.
- As an alternate to the above, a white or ivory dinner jacket, suitable for warm climates, or from mid-April through Labor Day (US and Canada)
- Black trousers with a row of braid or ribbon down each leg
- White shirt
- Black bow tie
- Black low-cut waistcoat (called a vest in Canada and the US), or a cummerbund
- Black socks
- Black shoes
Coloured bow ties, waistcoats and cummerbunds are widespread at parties, but not appropriate at more formal occasions. On the other hand, wearing a white bow tie with a dinner jacket is considered a grave solecism. Cufflinks and shirts studs can be black, white, silver, or gold, and a white handkerchief and flower may be worn. In recent years it has become acceptable to wear state decorations with black tie at state events. In such cases only one neck ribbon and one breast star are worn, with miniature medals.
In the United Kingdom, it is felt in some circles that wing collars are properly the preserve of white tie, and that a shirt with a soft turn-down collar should be worn with black tie. However, in its earliest form black tie was always worn with a stiff white shirt and stiff wing collar. White waistcoats, such as those worn with white tie, were also an acceptable alternative to black.
Black tie, having originated as an informal dress code for e.g. dining at home, has no single accepted form of headgear. Generally a soft black felt hat such as a homburg may be worn together with an overcoat.
When it is worn
In the United Kingdom black tie is only properly worn in the evening, i.e. after 6 p.m.. Though in some other places such as the United States, it has become common to wear black tie at four o'clock weddings and evening weddings. At Harvard in the 1960s, young men in dinner jackets seen during the late afternoon hastening towards an event would be hailed by ironic cries of "Check please!"
Black tie is worn at many private and public dinners, dances, and parties, and it would be impossible to draw up a comprehensive list. At the most formal end it has taken over from white tie at many occasions where the latter would formerly have been worn, e.g. by orchestra conductors. In the United States, it commonly appears at prom (see tuxedo rental).
See also
External link
- J. Earle Stevens of Tuxedo Park corrects the legend (http://www.votuxpk.com/History/GrizzysLarkAndALegend.htm)
Alternate derived (presumably) definition of "cummerbund"
A wide waistband on a diving stability jacket - Buoyancy Control Device - designed to provide more comfort to the user than a standard waistband and usually made of a stout fabric backed with velcro fastenings.
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