White Tie – Shirt
The Shirt
If you want to, you can wear an ordinary white shirt. You may not win the "Best Dressed Man" prize, but no-one will be able to say that you are not following the dress code. If you have a shirt with a (sober) pleated front (as often worn with black tie), you can also wear that. If you are going to follow either of these options, read no further. However, we hope you will read further …
When your finances allow and your inclinations prompt you, you should definitely think about a stiff-fronted shirt. The standard stiff-fronted shirt has its central front panel made of "marcella" or "pique". This is a thick cotton fabric with a dimpled surface (sometimes called "golf-ball") – see the background to this page [if you have a good monitor]. Because the material is thick, the two halves of this central panel are fastened with shirt studs (rather than buttons). The cuffs are also stiff and these are fastened with cuff-links.
A stiff-fronted shirt produces a much better effect altogether – especially as the waistcoat and bow-tie can be of the same material.
You can find stiff-fronted shirts with soft (attached) wing collars. No-one will object to your wearing one of these. Indeed, virtually no-one (other than yourself) will even know that you are wearing such an item. However, if you're going to the trouble of wearing a stiff-fronted shirt, you might as well do the thing properly and have a stiff collar too. Such a collar is attached to the shirt at the time of wearing – it is not permanently attached. Therefore, you buy a collarless stiff-fronted shirt and then buy detachable collars separately. The collar is attached to the shirt by a pair of collar studs.
If you do buy a collarless shirt and detachable collars, you need to know something about collar sizes. You buy a collarless shirt with collar band half an inch smaller than your usual collar size and wear it with collars of your usual size. Thus, if you normally wear shirts with a 15½" collar, you need a collarless shirt with 15" collar band and some 15½" collars.
Note: If your normal collar is relatively tight, go for a collar ½" bigger than normal. Whatever, collar size you do eventually decide on though, the rule about the collar band being ½" smaller than the collar always holds.
Cuff-Links
Unless your shirt has buttons at the cuff, you will need cuff-links. Cuff-links come in two forms:
- Swivel-bar. The more common form.
- Chain links. Not so common in general. However, they are widely available in Cambridge because those Cambridge tailors who sell college scarves and such like usually sell college cuff-links in both forms.
Provided you can get your hands through the closed cuffs, put your cuff-links into your cuffs before you put your shirt on unless you are confident you can insert cuff-links using only one hand!. Chain links tend to be looser than swivel-bar links so you can always put these in before wearing. Some swivel-bar links are so tight that you will have to put them in after putting the shirt on. (This will test your dexterity!)
Shirt Studs
Shirts studs are essentially detachable buttons and they are used to fasten the front of stiff shirts. (They can sometimes be used on some soft-fronted shirts.) You will normally need three and they are therefore usually sold in either threes or fours.
Shirt studs can be divided into two types.
- Push through. The stud is made of a single piece of metal and consists of a base, a stem and a head. The base rests against your chest. You then push the head through the left front of your shirt and then through the right thus fastening the fronts of your shirt.
- Screw top. The stud consists of a head which screws into the body. To wear: Unscrew the head; push the base through the holes in both sides of the shirt; screw the head back. The head is visible to the outside world; the base rests against your chest. The head of the stud is usually decorated in some way: a pattern on the metal, pearl or mother of pearl, or some jet black material. (The last is particularly appropriate for wearing with black tie.) The head is usually circular but hexagons or octagons sometimes turn up.
Some modern shirts have a slit in one side of the chest allowing you to get a hand to the inside of your shirt even when it is fastened. You will find this makes putting shirt studs in easier.
It is very easy to drop shirt studs (especially those that unscrew). If you've never been able to understand how your mother or sister or girlfriend manages to lose so many ear-rings, you are about to find out!
Detachable Collars
The usual form of detachable collar worn with any form of evening dress is the classic "wing collar". Variations are the rounded wing collar and the "Imperial".
A stiff collar has three holes (or slits) in it. One is at the back; the other two are at the front and overlap when the collar is closed.
Collar Studs
Collar studs secure a detachable collar to the collar band – a sort of residual collar – of a collarless shirt. You will need a pair: a front stud and a back stud. They have the same form but the front stud is taller than the back stud since it has to go through four layers of material and not two. Each consists of a base, a stem and a head. (The head is more of a flat cylinder than a sphere.)
The head of a modern-day collar stud can be swivelled. When it is parallel to the base it is in the "Closed" position; when it has been tilted as far as it will go (about 45°), it is "Open". If you can't make the head swivel, look under the head to see where the axis is.
To wear
- Start by taking the front stud and your stiff collar.
- Open the stud and push it into and out of the three holes in the collar so as to open the holes. On a freshly laundered collar, these holes will be very stiff. You will appreciate having opened them a little when you come to put the collar on!
- Take the back stud, open it, push it through the hole in the back of the collar band of the shirt (so that the base of the stud rests against your neck when the shirt is worn), push the stud through the hole in the back of the collar, close the stud.
- Take the front stud, open it, push through the hole at the neck of the shirt on the right-hand side (so that the base will lie against the neck when the shirt is worn) and close the stud.
- Put the shirt on.
- Close the neck of the shirt by opening the front stud and pushing the hole on the left front onto the stud.
- Take hold of the right-hand side of the collar and push its hole onto the stud.
- Do the same with the left-hand side of the collar.
- Close the stud.
Finished!
P.S. Plain-Fronted Stiff Shirts
There is a second form of stiff shirt not often seen these days. This is identical to the form described above except that the stiff fronts are completely plain (and not dimpled). It is regarded as even more formal than the dimpled version; on the other hand, because it is plain, it can also be worn with morning dress (or even a lounge suit).
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Last updated St Luke, 2000