In a message dated 10/17/2007 8:34:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Ann's right; tuxedos were originally a kind of informal wear; they did not become formal wear until the 1920s. Unfortunately, I don't remember enough to be more detailed than that. ************** This is what I remember too. And in the teens you might see a real mix, the older men in older styles, the young men in tuxes. Here is what it says on "Definitions of the clothing & Textile industry:" The American name tuxedo is taken from Tuxedo Park, New York, a private club of country houses founded by Pierre Lorillard, the tobacco heir. (The town of Tuxedo and Tuxedo Park themselves were named by the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who called the largest lake in the area tucseto, meaning either place of the bear or clear flowing water.) Traditionally, the first Autumn Ball, held at the Tuxedo Club in October 1886, marked the official first American appearance of the English dinner jacket, which was favored by the fast sporting crowd round the Prince of Wales, who liked to wear a "Cowes" jacket, somewhat like a formal mess jacket, first at dinner aboard his yacht during the regattas held at _Cowes_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowes) , and then later at other evening entertainments, though never in London. The original single- breasted model was simply a tailcoat without a tail, worn with a white piqué vest as would be worn with a tailcoat, then later with a black vest ensuite with the jacket and trousers. At the 1886 Tuxedo Park Autumn Ball, Pierre Lorillard's young son Griswold Lorillard and his friends startled guests, all in white tie and tailcoats, by wearing the new English dinner jackets, with scarlet evening vests. The tailless coats were similar in cut to hunting pinks worn in daytime at foxhunting meets. When after 1889, gentlemen in "tuxedos" were even admitted to the Dress Circle at the new Metropolitan Opera, the success of the new fashion was made. A Tuxedo Park insider recalls a different story of the Tuxedo Park introduction of black tie, told him in the 1920s by Grenville Kane, the last founding member of the Tuxedo Club. Kane remembered that it had been James Brown Potter who, after staying with the Prince of Wales at Sandringham in the summer of 1886, brought back the new fashion to Tuxedo and introduced it to the members of the club The American upper classes now generally prefer the terms "black tie" or "dinner jacket" to "tuxedo", which is considered slightly vulgar. Early evening clothes were uniformly black. The Duke of Windsor, when Prince of Wales, introduced midnight blue as an appropriate color, and even made the double-breasted dinner jacket acceptable. The waist sash called cummerbund (or cumberbund) was borrowed after World War I, from military dress in British _India_ (http://www.apparelsearch.com/World_Clothing_Industry/India/india.htm) . ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
