Dapper in the Details

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

In a culture gone casual, New Year’s Eve celebrations are among the few times — aside from weddings after 6 p.m. and the occasional gala evening — that the modern man receives the directive: “black tie.” But going black tie is not a matter of swapping your colorful tie for a black one and throwing on a black suit. It’s a matter of details—and attending to them with care.

THE SHIRT: If you are wearing a shirt as you read this, your shirt likely has a lay-down collar. But a black tie event is an occasion for the wingedtipped collar shirt. Look at a portrait by Goya: the wing-tipped collar imparts an almost numinous elegance on even the most unkempt sitter. Unless you are a waiter, chances are that your only chance to wear a wingtipped collar shirt will be at a black tie event — so wear it. Brooks Brothers (346 Madison Ave., between 44th and 45th streets, 212-682-8800) sells them for $118. At the higher end, Brioni (57 and 67 E. 57th St., between Madison and Park avenues, 212-376-5777) sells them for about $400, which is the cost of two pairs of tuxedo pants at Brooks Brothers. In between the two prices, but above both in craftsmanship is a shirt by a custom tailor. Evening wear is expensive, and you are not going to dress in evening wear often, so you might as well get it done right once.

STUDS AND CUFF LINKS: A good evening wear shirt should come not with buttons attached to it, but with a separate silk or cotton ribbon with buttons sewn on it. You will have the option of wearing the detached buttons by threading their ribbon behind the shirt’s front placket. Alternatively, you can wear studs. But the patina on your shoes, your white braces, and the black silk stripe down the side of your pant leg will disconcert you enough: You don’t want to have to worry about losing a stud and revealing your chest hair or navel, or perhaps even wishing you’d wore a cummerbund to conceal the absence of that lowermost stud.

The advantage to buying a stud set is that you will end up with cuff links to match your shirt studs; but since cuff links are as catholic in shape, size, and closure as they are, you may have something suitable on hand already if you wear French-cuff shirts (which are a must for black-tie). On the other hand, vintage stud sets are not much more costly — or can often be less expensive — than the cost of modern, formal cuff-links. Look for stud-sets made in the immediate postwar years by Kremnitzer. Pre-war stud sets can set you back possibly more than your dinner jacket, and if you are wearing a neck tie (as opposed to a bow tie), no one will see your shirt-studs. If you fear losing a stud, go to the Missing Link in Chelsea (40 W. 25th St., 212-645-6928) and buy yourself two affordable but decent-looking matching or similar sets of studs. Two reasonably priced stud sets will give you selection and back-up.

THE CUMMERBUND: If you are not singing the Toreador song in the Met’s next production of Bizet’s “Carmen,” you should neither own nor wear a cummerbund. The better option is a vest cut from the same cloth as the pants and the dinner jacket. The most basic of black ties were traditionally cut from the same wool as that of the suit — that is, they were not silk. That tradition attests to the organic, holistic nature of classic men’s evening wear.

THE SUIT: An affordable three-piece tuxedo — ideally one-buttoned with peak lapels — can be purchased for $1,095 at Hugo Boss (717 Fifth Ave. at 56th Street, 212-485-1800). The drawback to Hugo Boss’s jacket is that has no vents; I prefer side vents, but no vents are better than a center vent. At Ralph Lauren (867 Madison Ave. at 72nd Street, 212-606-2100), an off-the-rack tuxedo here is strictly a two-piece number. But they can make you a vest in the same fabric for an additional cost if you prefer a three-piece tuxedo. The price here for a twopiece tuxedo ranges from $1,295 for the basic Polo label to $3,000 for the infinitely more elegant Purple Label number, Ralph Lauren’s convincing attempt to out-English the English. At Brooks Brothers, you can buy your tuxedo trouser for $200 and your jacket for $698, but they will try to sell you a cummerbund. An unpleated, laydown collar shirt is a lesser evil then a cummerbund; so if you go the more affordable route, buy the two-piece tuxedo, buy the ‘less formal’ evening wear shirt, and forego both vest and cummerbund. Use caution with colorful vests; a silk damask vest can be stunning, but it can also make you look like window treatments.

The best value is to have all three pieces made by a tailor — and to have the tuxedo made with two pairs of pants. The worsted wool of the seat can quickly become shiny and threadbare after all that sitting and shimmying. When buying bespoke, you are paying more for craftsmanship, but you are also paying incrementally less for the fabric you are using once your tailor has made your pattern. Pierre Papadopoulos (450 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2105, at 35th Street, 212 947 0316) is far and away best tailor I know outside of London; the price tag (upward of $3,000 depending on the fabric, your negotiating skills, and his sympathy) and the six months it takes to get the finished product are worth it: Pierre and his wife, Sofia, do all of their work in their decidedly unfashionable, cluttered cutting rooms.

BOW TIES: If you want to wear a bow tie but do not know how to tie one, go to the Charvet boutique at Bergdorf Goodman (745 Fifth Ave. at 58th Street, 212-339-3311): The sales associates there will patiently introduce you to a range of knot styles, from Georgian flounce to Chaplinesque droop to professorial dimples. The best makers of black ties are Charvet and Brioni, which are both about $150.


The New York Sun

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