Dress Code: Breaking Black Tie
We consult our black tie brain trust for lessons on wearing formalwear creatively
We will soon be entering proper black tie season, with all the holiday parties upon us. Now, you know I’m never one to wave around the rule book when it comes to dressing, but I do have a firm stance on black tie. If you're going to commit to the black tie experience, you commit to the black tie experience. If you don't want to commit to it or you're going to approach it in a half-assed way, then don't go to the party. That's the way I look at it.
But…there’s a lot of wiggle room within this particular dress code, so long as you commit to the bare necessity, which is wearing a tuxedo, hopefully with a bow tie. I’m not a fan of these open-collar looks you see on red carpets these days, or even worse, the sad, shiny black scarf or necktie.
So, once you’ve checked off the bow tie (you’ll know that I’m fond of bow ties on the generous side, and even had the “Oversized Hranek” model made up by my friend Mickael at La Bowtique), there’s plenty to play with. I think that shirts in particular are a good place to express yourself, which was the inspiration behind the washed denim pleated evening shirts I made with Budd. The shirt—which is available in a spread collar or a retro wing collar—are a fusion of two things that I love: a super soft, washed chambray shirt that fades with time (we call it chambray whereas the Italians call it denim), and a pleated tuxedo shirt. It’s certainly a bolder choice than a bib front, and I’ve admired the style ever since I saw a photo of Frank Sinatra wearing one while sitting in a green room sipping whiskey.
I’ve had plenty of fun pairing it to my black seersucker tuxedo or ivory smoking jacket—two other choices that creatively play within black tie’s parameters. In that same spirit, we’ve rung up a few other gents—Angel Ramos, Mickael Korausch, Zach Weiss, Sid Mashburn, and Fred Castleberry—who know their way around a bow tie to share how they make formal attire their own.