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musings on men's formal wear from the creator of The Black Tie Guide
Browsing All Posts filed under »Miscellanea«
Not-So-Great Gatsby Tuxedos
I finally got a chance to see The Great Gatsby and while I loved the movie I was disappointed by the inaccuracy of the men’s evening wear. Normally I would chalk this up to sloppy research but that doesn’t seem likely considering that the film’s double Academy Award-winning costumer designer Catherine Martin based her creations on […]
A New Take on Rentals
June 5, 2013
A few months ago I was contacted by the young owners of a start up business aiming to provide quality tuxedo rentals by mail. Their company is called The Black Tux and their business model is to offer higher quality rentals than mainstream renters at a lower cost. They include free shipping (both ways) and […]
Of Fly Fronts and French Cuffs
May 3, 2013
I bought my first fly-front shirt recently and the process was definitely not as simple as I had thought it would be. Here’s what I learned . . . Lesson Number One: Understated Shouldn’t Mean Plain. The least expensive fly-front I found in my search at Harry Rosen was a basic BOSS model without a bib. I […]
Ambassadors of Black Tie
April 8, 2013
I often receive e-mail from readers filled with gratitude for The Black Tie Guide’s role in introducing them to the timeless pleasure of conventional black tie. I like to point out to them that I am equally grateful for the role they are now playing as black-tie ambassadors to the world at large. While the […]
The Black Tie Guide: Now With 50% More Visitors!
April 5, 2013
It’s been a year since I last reviewed traffic statistics for The Black Tie Guide so I thought I’d take a look at what’s been happening since then. The most dramatic change is the amount of traffic, climbing from a previous all-time high of 55,000 monthly visitors to a new milestone of 81,000 visitors per […]
The Buffalo Club
April 3, 2013
Reader Bill Cleary from Buffalo, New York (seen on the right) is living the formal dream, as are his fellow members of The Buffalo Club. The club is steeped in tradition having been incorporated in 1867 by a group of men that included former U.S. president Millard Fillmore. A book published for the organization’s 125th […]
Black Tie on the Nieuw Amsterdam
March 25, 2013
I recently returned from a Caribbean cruise that was not only a wonderful vacation but also a thought-provoking reminder of how far I’ve come in my black tie journey. As I explain in the introduction to The Black Tie Guide, the site originated with preparations for my first cruise in 2004. I wanted to be […]
Women’s Tuxedos & Tailcoats
January 24, 2013
I have finally delved into the last fringe aspect of black tie not yet covered in The Guide: Women dressing in tuxedos. Or, more precisely, women dressing in men’s evening wear. While there is an abundance of writing about the topic of women and menswear in general, this more specific subject appears to be devoid […]
Inaugural Ball 2013: Insider Report
January 23, 2013
I received an e-mail last week from Laurie in Philadelphia describing a sadly all-too-common scenario among Black Tie Guide readers: the reader is invited to rare black-tie event and conscientiously commits to understanding and honouring the details of the dress code the reader is elated to discover that the Guide makes understanding the code a […]
Full Dress Gandhi
January 20, 2013
Well here’s something I never expected to see: Mahatma Gandhi in white tie. The depiction in this vintage photograph is very likely a forgery considering that the faces are identical in both shots, but it still begs the question of why would someone create the forgery? I did a little research and found this newspaper […]
June 10, 2013
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