Shopping

Chic Dress Code: a Smoking Jacket for Rent in Moscow

White tie is the most formal style of dress. In the United Kingdom, civilian day dress in the Royal Court is similar to the white tie. The semi-formal counterparts of white tie are black tie and morning dress.

Formal evening dress is strictly regulated, and properly comprises:

• Black tailcoat with silk (ribbed or satin) facings, sharply cut-away at the front
• Black trousers with a single stripe of satin or braid in the US or two stripes in Europe
• White stiff-fronted cotton pique shirt l White stiff-winged collar
• White bow tie (usually cotton pique)
• White low-cut waistcoat (usually cotton pique, matching the bow tie and shirt)
• Black silk stockings
• Black patent leather pumps or shoes

Additionally, it is common to wear medals, sashes, and other decorations with white tie dress, especially if the man has some military, political, or royal background.

Shirts, waistcoats and bow ties are now usually made of cotton marcella, although plain linen shirts and white or off-white silk ties and waistcoats are sometimes worn. Shirt studs and cuff-links should be silver or white. A white handkerchief and flower may be worn.

Like black tie, evening dress is generally worn only after 6 p.m. Occasions include:

• State dinners (e.g. dinners with visiting heads of state)
• Some balls
• Weddings
• Artistic premiers, the opening of an art season in large cities, or the opera or ballet. The swallow-tail coat with long tails has become almost a cliche for concert pianists of the classical school.

To buy all the above new could cost you a small fortune. However, all the items can be obtained secondhand, or hired without too much difficulty. Indeed, older garments are likely to be of a better material and of a better cut than you can obtain without having clothes made for you. Furthermore, you may already own some of the items such as a plain white shirt or a pair of trousers worn with a dinner jacket. There are a number of accessories you can add.

The tail coat is the sine qua non of white tie. Fortunately, old tail coats of high quality are relatively easy to hire.

The first thing to note is that there is a difference between the evening tail coat worn as a part of white tie and the morning coat. They are both black and with tails. However the evening tail coat is doublebreasted and cut small so that the fronts don’t fasten even though there are three buttons on either front. Furthermore, the evening tail coat has a facing to its lapels – the morning coat doesn’t. Don’t confuse the two.

Traditionally the month of March is devoted to women. It’s reasonable: every person in this country knows that 8th of March is Women’s Day. Originating essentially as a day to show women’s strength, it finally became a day of women’s “weaknesses”: the men of the family, colleagues, friends, any men, do everything to give their woman a feeling that she’s a queen. She gets presents, wishes, compliments, flowers, and is not allowed to do any job around the home. But… If a woman is a Queen, the men surrounding her, should look accordingly. So, this time we decided to write about dress codes for men…

In general, the coat is made of the same material as the trousers it is worn with (in this sense it is a “suit”). However, since the color is black, any slight difference in texture is unlikely to be visible.

The coat has no hips and therefore no hip pockets. It has an outside welted pocket and probably two inside breast pockets.

They say that trousers worn with white tie are different from those worn with black tie. By this, they mean that, whereas the latter have one line of braid down the outside of each of the legs, the former have two lines of braid. In practice, very few people know this and, in poor lighting, it is difficult to tell the difference.

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.

A stiff-fronted shirt produces a much better effect altogether. You can find stiff-fronted shirts with soft attached wing collars. Indeed, virtually no-one will even know that you are wearing such an item.

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.

Shirts studs are essentially detachable buttons and they are used to fasten the front of stiff shirts. They can be divided into two types:

• Push through.
• Screw top.

The most common form of white waistcoat is one made of two marcella (or pique) panels, each forming one front of the waistcoat.

The next item you’ll have to deal with is a bow-tie. It is not difficult to tie a bow-tie – the geometry of the knot is identical to that in your shoe laces. Since the latter has two sub-types, there are in fact three forms of bow-tie to choose from.

• Made-up. The bow is already tied. You put it on by unfastening some hook and eye arrangement in the neck-band, putting the tie around the collar and refastening.
• Tie yourself – Adjustable. Adjust the tie to the correct length and then tie it.

Tie yourself – Fixed. The most stylish! There are no hooks and eyes or buckles along the length of the material to distract the eye – just a plain piece of material. You put the tie against your collar and tie it. Since the tie is not adjustable, you have to buy a tie of the right size. The rule is that your tie is half an inch bigger than your collar.

Next times we’ll tell you what the Black Tie dresscode is, where and how to wear it.