Appropriate Compromise

The late designer Hardy Amies wrote that he used to save room in his suitcases by packing a navy suit to do double duty as a dinner jacket on more formal evenings, and in the photograph the New York artist Alex Katz shows that a white dress shirt and a black bowtie do indeed turn a blue double breasted into a reasonable facsimile of dinner clothes.

Perhaps part of his secret is the diamond ended bow tie, so rarely seen that it distracts the eye and leaves the self lapels un-noticed. Another is the suit itself, made from a cloth with a little sheen of its own.

In my opinion if a man has reason to compromise, better a lounge suit with black tie accessories than Hollywood's four in hand neckties worn with dinner clothes. Particularly dinner clothes with trousers worn so long that they puddle on the floor...