Pinned Shirt Collars

In his day, columnist Herb Caen was arguably one of San Francisco's best dressed men (I say arguably only because of his penchant for unfortunate neckties) and a good customer of Savile Row's Henry Poole. As I leafed through a collection of his work last week I was struck by how often he was photographed wearing pinned collars. Good for him.

Like a tab collar, the virtue of a pin is that it raises the necktie knot. Though some deem it a little fussy or a little flash, it's better than a tab because when you remove the pin and necktie, you're left with an ordinary shirt collar. At least you are if you haven't indulged in one of those shirts that's got little holes sewn so you don't have to put the pin through the cloth. I consider that unnecessary as the weave will close up again during laundering, whereas pre-sewn eyelets mean a shirt is unwearable if you don't feel like pinning it that day.

Collars for pins come in two styles. There's the straight collar, usually about 3" long, and the rounded corner club (Brooks Brothers calls it the golf). I like to pin my club collars if I'm wearing them in the city, and I leave them unpinned in the country. That means I probably pin an individual shirt perhaps twice a year, so any damage caused by the pin is hardly a factor in the shirt's longevity.

If you're looking to acquire a pin, the safety pin style should be about 2" long or a little longer. Broderick has them in 14 carat gold for $180, and in gold plate or sterling for less than $30.