Vintage Attire Details

• Shirts & Collars

Stiff-Front Shirts

The "boiled shirt" was a detachable collar shirt (known as a tunic) with a bosom that was so stiff that the shirt literally had to be boiled during laundering in order to remove the copious amount of starch. It was typically designed like a nightshirt in that it was slipped on over the head before being buttoned up in back. The bosom and cuffs were originally linen or broadcloth but piqué also became an option by the 1920s. Originally created as a full-dress shirt, it was adapted for black tie by the replacement of its single cuffs with more frivolous French cuffs (although both styles were closed with links instead of buttons).

Soft-Front Shirts

In the late 1920s black tie finally received its own unique style of shirt that was more appropriate for wear with a jacket intended only for informal affairs. The new dinner shirt had a pleated soft front, buttoned like a regular shirt, sported French cuffs and usually had an attached turndown collar. In the 1930s London shirtmakers adapted this style and created the marcella shirt, named after the piqué pattern used for its bosom, cuffs and collar.

Example of a vintage dress shirt that fastens in the back. This was a common style for dress shirts up until WWII as it allowed the unbroken bosom to be as stiff as possible. It was also a common style for regular shirts in the 19th century but fell out of favor when front opening shirts allowed the garment to be tailored to a man's waist (versus the entire shirt being wide enough to fit over his shoulders). If you look closely at the interior collar of the white-tie shirts below you can see the seam where they button in back. 1895 patterns for "open back" shirts (figures B and C). The tab at the bottom of the bosom is designed to "button to the drawers" (Shirts & Men's Haberdashery)

Reproduction piqué-front Marcella shirt sold by VintageShirt.co.uk. Detail from 1932 Arrow ad for a full-dress shirt. 1935 ad for Lion brand full-dress shirt. Note the dramatic height of the detachable collar.

Early dinner shirt: Arrow "Kirk" model with stiff bosom and "Chevy" model detachable collar (1933) Arrow "Eric" model with soft bosom and detachable turndown collar (1934)

Arrow "Riviera" model with soft bosom and attached turndown collar with narrow spread (1934)

Riviera and Eric models, the latter shown this time with a wing collar (1934)
Note the suspender loops on either side of the bib on the full-dress Lido model. Also note that unlike the black-tie wing collar shirts shown on this page, the Lido does not have French cuffs. (1938)

Two styles of full dress shirt, one with one button and one with two buttons. Both shirt bibs are short to allow for tall- waisted trousers. In order to prevent the stiff bosom from bulging when the wearer was seated, it could not extend below the trouser waistband nor underneath the suspenders. (1932)
Vintage tricks: This Capper & Capper dress shirt had convenient openings on both side of the bib to allow studs to be inserted without creasing the starched front. The bib also has an elastic band on each side that fastens around the back and "absolutely prevents the bosom from bulging". (1935) This full-dress shirt has a pique bosom and mesh body as well as adjustable back straps for a better fit, "an idea borrowed from French-back shorts". (The item in the foreground is a lighter in case you're wondering.) (Esquire 1933)

Detachable Collars

As the story goes, the detachable collar was invented in 1827 by a housewife in Troy, New York who was tired of trying to remove the “ring-around-the-collar” from her husband’s shirts. Having a collar that was separate from the shirt was not only more efficient for laundering but was also more economical as it allowed the soiled collar to be replaced without having to buy an entirely new shirt. Initially manufactured by hand and constructed of cotton, paper or heavily starched linen, its popularity quickly spread to the rest of the world, particularly among the growing class of office-workers which became known as “white collar” workers. Detachable collars were the height of fashion by 1862 when machines were invented to mass produce them by laminating linen onto thick cardboard stock creating a material known as linene. Shortly after its invention in 1870 an early form of plastic called celluloid was interlined with the linen to create an extremely stiff collar that could be cleaned with simple soap and water instead of the elaborate starching and pressing process required for the other materials.

By the turn of the century the most popular collar styles were turndown, poke (i.e. upright) and wing collars. A 1903 “correct dress chart” in The Haberdasher and Clothier dictated the former style for wear with the tailcoat and the latter two models for the informal dinner jacket. Like the stiff-front shirt, the hard collar became unpopular during World War I when men became accustomed to the soft attached collars worn with their military uniforms. According to the Costumer’s Manifesto web site, “By the 1930's the hard collar was only the preserve of older men and conservative dressers, except for the wing collar for formal and evening wear.” After World War II the detachable collar was relegated almost exclusively to white-tie attire especially once the attached wing collar was introduced in the 1960s (much to the dismay of purists everywhere).


A 1912 ad for various turndown and wing models. Detachable collars were attached to the front and back of tunic neckbands using studs. (New York Public Library)	An 1899 window display featuring dozens of different collar and cuff models available for sale.	One of the starched cotton wing collars available from Vintage Shirt. Detachable collars have the advantage of coming in a variety of heights to best suit the wearer's neck length.

Detachable Bosoms and Cuffs

A dickey (alternately spelled dicky or dickie) is a type of false shirt-front that buttons to the collar of an evening shirt and tucks into a waistcoat or cummerbund. Made of the same celluloid as detachable collars and cuffs, their waterproof, wrinkle-free and stain-resistant properties made them popular with entertainers, musicians and waiters and consequently disdained by well-dressed gentlemen who viewed them as the equivalent of a pre-tied bow tie. Their extreme stiffness and tendency to pop out of place frequently made them the subject of humor and ridicule. (Remember the old Looney Tunes cartoon where Bugs Bunny takes his revenge on an arrogant opera singer?)

Shirt cuffs were also available in detachable celluloid but do not appear to have achieved the same popularity as their collar counterparts and at least one turn-of-the-century dress chart specifically required attached cuffs on evening shirts. Single cuffs were the standard on such shirts until after World War II when French cuffs became popular for black tie.

1912 ad for a detachable shirt bosom. Similar dickeys are still available from Amazon Drygoods Collars and Cuffs. (New York Public Library) Circa 1890s ad for celluloid collars, cuffs and shirt bosoms. (costumes.org) 1912 ad for detachable shirt cuffs. (New York Public Library)

sources: www.wikipedia.org, www.costumes.org, www.ushist.com

• Waistcoats


Before the 1930s waistcoats were traditionally U-shaped but today they are quite rare. This one is from London haberdasher Oliver Brown.	Black-tie waistcoats were rarely seen in double-breasted styles and are virtually extinct today except for this Tom Ford model (which will set you back a cool $1,265.)	1915 model shown in center of top row and bottom row (Esquire's Encyclopedia of 20th Century Men's Fashions)

1934 ad including a model that acted as a suspenders substitute	1933 ad

1935 ad	1932 Apparel Arts pictorial	1936 ad featuring a braces-attached full-dress waistcoat

• Hats

In the 1930s it was very stylish to wear a Sennit straw hat (also known as a straw boater) with black tie in summer. (Miller Hats)

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