Wow effuses about white tie and tails
when properly fitted. Aye, there's the rub. 9 times out of 10 when you do see a man in white tie, the waisted part of the coat is so short that the white vest is exposed beneath it. It's not supposed to; you are only supposed to see the vest in the front under the coat. Do you ever see Fred Astaire showing a ring of white under the front of his tailcoat, even when dancing on the ceiling?
As to the alternative: please, ladies, the word "tuxedo" is considered declasse in polite circles and "tux" is downright vulgar. It's "dinner jacket" or "black tie", or in French "smoking". It's certainly an elegant way to dress and the cost is not exorbitant. I have had my own since I was 18* and am now on the fourth one, having worn one out and outgrown 2. All black, of course; anything else, with the possible exception of midnight blue, which they don't make any more, is for musicians and other riffraff.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUSICK AND MANY MORE! And yes, every self-respecting gentleman knows how to tie a bow tie. It's the same knot you use to tie your shoes, except the perspective is different -- it's done from the point of view of your feet. (Why does this remark never make anyone more confident?)
*thereby hangs another tale. When I went away to University (1957), my father decided I needed a dinner jacket, so he gave me his old one, which he had bought in 1935 for $25.00, and stopped wearing about 1948 when he bought one of those horrible double-breasted ones which made every man look like a pickle barrel. This outfit was single-breasted, with the very wide satin lapels of the '30s, and, as they say, all wool but the buttons, and half an inch thick, or so it seemed. Since he was the only man in his circle who had his own dinner jacket, his friends were always borrowing it, so his grandmother would let it out as far as size 44 or take it in as far as 34 (my father was size 40) as needed by whoever was wearing it next. I wanted it updated, so I went to an old German tailor and asked him what it would cost to change the old wide lapels to the then-fashionable shawl collar. He quoted a price of $15, to which I agreed. When I went back to pick it up, he was greatly chagrined. He had not noted that the satin lining went all the way back more than a foot in the inside and he had spent $15 just on satin to re-do the coat. Tant pis, was my response. I wore that, sweating like a pig in warm weather because the material was so heavy, for 10 years, when my father took pity on me and treated me to a new Palm Beach dinner jacket in lightweight material.
