Bx
oe NEWS photo Terry Peters
WRITER John Moore dons his vintage tux, a time-

" less classic picked up at the Salvation Army thrift
shop years ago and just as wearable today.

Sunday, June 6, 1999 — North Shore News — 15

north shore news

FASHION

“For me, a tuxedo is a way of
lite, When an invitation says
Black Tie Optional, it is always
safer to wear black tie. I
wouldn’t feel comfortable
dressed any other way.” —
Frank Sinatra

Back in black

John Moore

Contributing Writer

UNTIL recently, most men of
my generation would claim
they'd rather wear prison over-
alls than get into formal
evening dress.

Maturity and the nostalgia which
always comes over our culture at the
carn of a century has led to a revival of
clegance. Swing is back, gowns are

slinky, torch songs are hot, the lizards
are back in the lounges, murmuring

~ Hines cribbed from Bogart movies and

Sinatra tunes.

Frank may have sung “My Way” for
the last time, but he’s bigger now than
Elvis, who supplanted him in the ’50s.
How many guys do you see wearing
gold lamé jumpsuits with vampire col-
lars and flaky little capes these days?

For Sinatra, the tux became an
obsession, the uniform of the class to
which the Italian immigrant kid had
risen and he wouldn’t suffer even his
closest friends to remind him of
Hoboken by taking a casual approach
to matters of sartonal form.

When Sammy Davis Jr. was

The, Bowtie: get the real thing and an instruction

unavoidably delayed and turned up late
for a Las Vegas gig with Frank and
Dean, he made the mistake of dashing
onstage in the suit he drove up in.
Sinatra sent him off to change into for-
mal wear.

Decades before, the nouveau riche
American gangster class had already
adopted the tux as an emblem of the
“class” to which they aspired, a unique
irony often exploited by mob assassins
who wore tuxedos and posed as sym-
phony musicians, transporting their
Thompson submachine-guns in violin
cases,

Even if you wear a tuxedo only
once, it wil] be one of the most impor-
tant days of your life — most likely your
wedding day — so whether it’s rented
or custom tailored, you’d rather look
like something other than a big stuffed
penguin. You want to look like Sinatra,
Sean Connery as James Bond, Bogart
in Casablanca, the young Cary Grant
or the old John Barrymore, Adolphe
Menjou, Claude Rains; all the great
character actors who literally looked
better in black and white.

Dressing up in your finest “glad
rags” for special occasions or a night on
the town is a concept as old as dispos-

Accessories...

sash offered gentlemen a discreet place to kcep certain

personal items.

“In a tuxedo, [’'m a star. In
regular clothes, I’m
nobody.” — Dean Martin

Swing is the thing, tuxedo grooves again

able income and Icisure Gme, but the
current notion of what constitutes “for-
mal” wear for men in our culture isn’t
even 200 years old.

Until the early 19th century in
England, male fashion was peacock-
proud, a wear-what-you-dare field for
dandies which enjoyed a brief revival in
the Carnaby Street trends of the 1960s.
In its time, black formal evening wear
was as affected as the black jeans, black
T-shirts and black tights combinations
that have been the uniform of disaffect-

ed younger generations for the latter

half of this century and for very similar
reasons, 7

The trend is often credited to
English politician and novelist Edward
Bulwer-Lytton — the man who actual-
ly began a novel with the immortal sen-
tence: “It was a dark and stormy
night...” — whose name still graces an
annual bad-writing competition and
who wore black to impress cveryone
with the fact that he was a Romantically
“blighted being and very, very melan-
choly.” . :

In 1828, he wrote that “people
must be very distinguished to look well

See Black page 17

booklet or men’s magazine article or book and learn how
to tie it. Practise. . .
The Shirt: No Sixties ruffles, please. Small tight
pleats down the front and stud closures, not buttons, as
with the cuffs. Doubled French cuffs are optional, but
cufflinks are not. There is no colour, Only white. ‘
Vest or Cummerbund? The low sweeping vest with
narrow shawl lapels is traditional. With “white tie” it
must be white, even if patterned, but “black tie” allows a
bit of flamboyant dandyism here. The vest can be richly,
colourfully patterned and still be correct, accentuated by
the monochrome of the rest of the ensemble. The cum-
merbund is a British East India variation, the “kanimer-
band” or sash of Mogul costume, now usually worn as an
abbreviated clip-on, but in its time the deep folds of the

e
ottdn Reg.
le piece:

“Theatre tickets, etc.” is the customary vague descrip-
tion of most fashion historians, but a French maitre’d
once told me that the folds should conceal three things:
a book of matches, a condom and a bill large cnough to
cover a taxi fare.. : ; :

Hose and Shoes: dark grey, charcoal or black calf-
high socks are essential. Shoes can range froma the stan-
dard pointed black patent lace-up Oxford, to the soft
slip-on tasseled pump, (Only the Brave...) or my own
preference, the low-heeled laceless ankle boot with a hid-
den side zipper that makes for the cleanest and most tra-
ditional line and recalls the military dress boot or origi-
nal Wellington. .
. — John Moore