Subscribe:
RSS feed
musings on men's formal wear from the creator of The Black Tie Guide
Vienna Balls Dress Codes
While writing a recent post on Vienna’s famous balls I stumbled across a remarkable booklet called DRESSCODES that is devoted entirely to the dress etiquette for these affairs. I say “remarkable” because in an age where vulgarity and slovenliness is increasingly fashionable, Vienna’s social leaders have the audacity to suggest that people hold themselves to […]
Posted in: Dress Codes & Etiquette
Up Close: The Hidden Tailcoat Pocket
February 4, 2013
Like other rarefied details of bygone formal tailoring such as shirt-front trouser tabs and authentic trouser braiding, I have long wished to see an actual example of pockets hidden inside a tailcoat’s tails. From The Black Tie Guide: “In company, as little as possible should be borne in pockets of the coat ; indeed, a full-dress coat […]
Posted in: White Tie
Reader Role Models: Finnish Finesse
January 29, 2013
Inspiration from Finnish reader Jonas Åberg . . . I do not remember exactly what inspired me to go out and buy a tuxedo in the first place. Where I live, you rarely see them and practically never have proper opportunity to wear one. I just thought that a tuxedo was the epitome of elegant […]
Posted in: Reader Role Models
2013 Vienna Ball Season: Insider Report
January 28, 2013
Reader Kate from the Washington, DC area wrote to say that she empathized with the challenge of finding classic black tie attire in the U.S. as experienced by a recent Inaugural Ball correspondent. On the flip side, her recent experience in Vienna provides an insight of what a genuine ball should look be like. While I did not […]
Posted in: Popular Culture, White Tie
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 […]
Posted in: Miscellanea, Popular Culture
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 […]
Posted in: Miscellanea
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 […]
Posted in: Miscellanea
February 7, 2013
8