Archive for October, 2009
Tuxedo New York
As many outsiders have done before him, the American James Brown Potter asked a local British friend what was appropriate dress for a British Party. His friend, the fashion forward Prince of Wales, gave creative advice. The Prince described a short jacket used in place of a tailcoat. When Potter returned to his New York based Tuxedo Park club, he adopted this new look and other members soon followed suit.
One night the Tuxedo Club group went to Delmonico’s wearing their new outfits. (The group may have decided on Delmonico’s because it was the only restaurant that would let them in without coat-tails).
Observers soon started calling the new garments “tuxedos” after the men who first wore them in the U.S. – the men from Tuxedo Park.
Fact Credit: Dressing The Man, Alan Flusser, p. 303
Image Credit: jlindeberg.com
“hunting pink” is more red than you think
Image Credit: stevenalan.com
“Hunting Pink” is a term given to a light shade of red, as featured in the red stripes on the Steven Alan’s hunting jacket featured above. English hunting law once granted hunting rights only to royalty- this law was strictly and morbidly enforced. According to one site, a penalty for unofficial hunting may have included death.
Wearing ‘hunting pink’ marked the king and his comrades as they hunted common land. The red was originally made from cactus beetles- their color extracted with acid.
Fact Credit: Hunting Pink facts from Dressing The Man, Alan Flusser, p. 290; English hunting right facts from elizabethan-era.org.uk
Sunglasses: reflecting on the past
In the early 1900s, the first silent film stars wore sunglasses to conceal incessantly irritated eyes- red from harsh lighting necessary to produce low speed film stock. It was only later that movie stars began wearing sunglasses to create or conceal an identity.
Fact Credit: Wikipedia
Image Credit: silverliningopticians.com