What's in a Name? Black Tie vs Black-Tie

The term black tie does not require a hyphen when used as a noun. However, the term is hyphenated when used as an adjective to indicate that something is characterized by or requires the wearing of the prescribed clothing. For example: "A gentleman will always dress in black tie when invited to a black-tie dinner."

Just to make things complicated, one of the exceptions to the rule for hyphenating compound adjectives is when they are capitalized such as when they appear in a title. For example: "The Black Tie Guide describes the various Black Tie dress codes."

Formal Facts

The only dress codes today’s young men have likely encountered are inclusive rather than exclusive, prohibiting selected articles of clothing while implicitly permitting all others. Formal dress codes take exactly the opposite approach.

Introduction: A Proper Education

In spite of male evening clothes being highly formulaic and regimented by their very nature, opportunities to observe this particular masculine attire being worn correctly today are surprisingly rare.

Alan Flusser

• The Black-Tie Black Hole

Bad Influences

Prior to World War II, the average man took his fashion cues from an upper class that considered proper appearance to be a very serious matter and could afford the services of highly experienced tailors to suit their standards. During this period sartorial trade journals and consumer fashion periodicals such as Men’s Wear, Apparel Arts and Esquire faithfully reported on the latest trends from society hotspots such as London, New York and Palm Beach, right down to the number of studs on the Duke of Windsor’s latest evening shirt.

All that changed following the war as the expansion of the middle class, youth culture, popular media and relaxed social standards gradually led to a fashion free-for-all. What used to be about appearing mature and sophisticated became centered on looking young and sexy. Thus trends today are led more by juvenile pop stars and savvy marketers than by experienced icons with impeccable taste. This shift in focus has been significantly detrimental to classic formal wear which is not simply about what’s “in” but what’s correct. Preeminent menswear authority Alan Flusser’s laments about the scarcity of proper evening wear in 1996's Style and the Man are even truer today than when the book was first published:

Menswear designers offer their alternative buttoned-up and casual versions each season, while the Hollywood crowd turns out it renditions for each year’s televised awards ceremonies. Most of the innovations they concoct are motivated by the desire for individuality and comfort, and the resulting confections usually turn out to be less than classic. The fact is that many men go to considerable effort to look special in a tuxedo when to do so is simply a matter of having the right information.

Bad Advice

Not surprisingly, many young men today crave something more substantial than the fast food, casual clothes and poor manners fostered by the counterculture revolution. Unfortunately most of us in this category have little experience with formal tradition and few opportunities for a proper education. We have just enough awareness to realize that the few formal rituals we encounter - namely graduations, weddings and funerals – require us to dress in a special way. For the specific details of such attire we are entirely dependent on those whom we expect to be educated in such matters.

Having ruled out designers and celebrities, the most obvious source of dependable formalwear advice would logically be the very people who sell or rent it to us. But herein lays the irony of the formalwear industry: most salespeople wouldn’t know black tie if it walked into the store and had a grand mal seizure. Considering that approximately ninety percent of rentals are for weddings and proms which are by nature youth-oriented parties, these retailers are well aware that they will profit far more by stocking their shelves with the latest fads and cheerfully advising their customers that “anything goes” than they would by limiting themselves to strictly defined tradition. This approach may be fine for teenage formals and young adult marriage ceremonies but it certainly won't hold water at proper black-tie events when guests are expected to be mature enough to know better.

• Let There Be Light

A mature understanding of black tie must come instead from an appreciation of the rich tapestry of tradition that lies hidden beneath its visible components. Consequently this section of the guide not only lists the garments which correctly comply with the dress code but also looks at the code’s etiquette and context.

Thanks to modern society's ignorance of traditional etiquette, the amount of detail involved in the precise definition of black tie can seem a little overwhelming at first. It may also appear somewhat arbitrary to people under forty who are used to dining in trendy eateries and working in "business casual" offices which lack any semblance of a formal dress code.

However, once a man begins to understand the premise of an outfit being correct rather than simply acceptable, he realizes the significant benefits of this system. Knowing that a formal evening is an inherent test of his sartorial education, a wise man will guarantee success by following the very straightforward rules of proper black tie rather than blindly trying to guess at what might qualify as an acceptable alternative.

Prior to the war the average man took his fashion cues from a sartorial elite (including Clark Gable, above) that understood the fundamentals of classic style.

Today most men choose their formal attire based on the marketing campaigns of an industry that treats the tuxedo as a novelty costume . . .

. . . on the influence of poorly dressed celebrities walking the red carpet. . .

. . . and on the latest fads from brand-name designers wantonly disregarding the tried-and-true conventions that lie at the heart of black tie's timeless appeal.

UPDATES | GLOSSARY | SEARCH | ADVERTISE | CONTACT