It was the end of May when I was measured for an evening shirt with a separate wing collar (see A Formal Shirt Project), and everyone agreed that the project would take a couple of weeks. Well, those weeks stretched into two months, principally, I am told, because master shirtmaker Mr. Mel Gambert wanted to make the collar absolutely perfect and it went through a couple of iterations.
That wait, however, is over and the shirt is apparently winging its way to California even as I write.
A link cuff shirt with a separate wing collar like this one is meant for white tie, though when men had valets the shirt front would have been unbroken by buttonholes as it closed at the back. Still, it would have been worn in the early days of black tie, when the tailor delivered a new single breasted and peaked lapel "casual" dinner jacket but there were only white tie accessories to accompany it. And that is how I will wear mine. More accurately, it is how I will wear it once someone makes me a white pique waistcoat.
Thank you to Lorraine Gambert, who took these photos at Mel Gambert Custom Shirts.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Formal Shirt Project Update
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7 comments:
Will,
In that second image it looks like the wings of the collar come all the way down in front of where the bowtie will sit. It's hard to picture how the tie comes round in front.
Do you know why that might be?
Though I suppose the easiest way to illustrate would be to wear it with a bowtie for a picture when it arrives!
Many thanks
Simon
I wish such shirts were still available to those of us in countries where these tailors do not come for fittings.
Why will you not wear it with a black waistcoat?
Related note: when, if ever, do you personally wear a cummerbund?
Horatio, I might wear it with a black waistcoat but I wanted it to wear with a white one.
I wear a cummerbund in warm weather.
is the collar of the same material as the rest of the shirt?
then, why make it separated.
the collar looks high, which is good. i hope you can achieve that starched high collar look.
The collar is cotton pique, as are the bib and cuffs. The shirt body is cotton voile, a much lighter fabric that wears considerably cooler.
Attached collars supposedly cannot be made large enough but I have never asked why.
My experience is that height is not the issue with attached collars (bespoke; for RTW that is the deal-breaker). The reasons for detached are dual, firstly historical (to do with how it used to be convenient to do laundry), and secondly that the degree of starching of the collar is really very high, higher than the rest of the shirt, so much so that I cannot unroll my collars after washing. With the panels starched, it would therefore be at the very least extremely difficult to get the curl right with the rest of the stiff baggage hanging on while you worked on the collar.
Regarding the question of the height of the wings, they come down to about 1cm from the bottom of the collar. When I wear white tie, the tie sits slightly above the stud, just covering it but still sitting slightly higher than the bottom of the collar (the tab holds the band to the very bottom of the collar at the back). The wings are exactly the same width as the tie, and the tips of the tie lie in front of the wings (as they must) with no difficulty at all. A well tied knot (preferably something daily practised at school) ensures the whole never once needs adjustment during the evening. For reference, my collars are 2½¨.
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