Black Tie Guide | Vintage: Retro

• The Peacock Revolution: Late '60s-Early '70s

The formal wear aberrations inflicted on the American male - particularly in the late 1960s - were limited only by designers' hallucinations. Here are just a few examples.

Esquire Dec 1962
GQ summer 1963
GQ Nov 1963

The Peacock Revolution began relatively tastefully by simply adding color to jackets.

Then came subdued patterns . . . . . and eventually it was "anything goes".

GQ winter 1969
GQ Nov 1968
GQ Nov 1970

This After Six ad encouraged men to abandon the tradition of understated evening wear that deferred to the striking appearance of their female companions.

Pirate-like formal shirts in an ad from 1968.
1970s Ralph Lauren evening wear.

GQ Nov 1970
GQ winter 1971/72
GQ winter 1972/73

Taking its cue from the new acceptance of open-collared shirts with suits, GQ paired this silver and white paisley dinner jacket with an unbuttoned dress shirt and black silk shantung trousers.
After Six denim tuxedo trimmed with midnight blue velvet lapels, collar and trouser stripes.

1972 After Six ad featuring a formal shirt rainbow.

• Alternative Formal Wear

In the counterculture of the 1960s “formal” was a four letter word. As a result, menswear magazines began to favor “evening” as a more innocuous descriptor for the decidedly informal alternatives being offered by manufacturers. Some examples are shown below.

GQ Feb 1968	GQ Nov 1967	GQ Nov 1969)
A "contemporary host outfit" known as an "evening jump suit". It is embellished with velvet in multiple shades of brown, blue, gold and red.	This shirt could be worn tucked into the trousers with a dinner jacket or, at swanky resorts, untucked and without a jacket.	"The evening suit, cardigan style." Mohair jacket with deep center vent but without buttons or chest pocket .
GQ winter 1968/69	GQ Feb '68	GQ Nov 1961
Champagne colored moiré "evening suit."	"Host" was another common sixties euphemism for "formal". This designer "host suit" consisted of a horizontally pleated white moiré shirt worn with black moiré trousers sporting a white floral lace stripe.	Introduced in 1961, the host coat was offered as a "refreshingly new black tie concept, singularly appropriate for those 'relaxed' formal occasions". Primarily designed for entertaining at home, these shawl collar jackets appeared in a wide variety of colors, patterns and fabrics.

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Retro Tuxedos

• The Peacock Revolution: Late '60s-Early '70s

• Alternative Formal Wear