NECKWEAR

Evening Star, Issue 19614, 21 July 1927, Page 13

NECKWEAR

THE COLLAR AHD TIE FIFTY YEARS OF FASHION. Mem have risen in protest ovgr the enslavement of their necks in the ga 1ing collar, and in Paris partwuliyly an attempt has been made to throw on the yoke. Tho Aiiti-Curcan League nl the French capital pledged its members to go collarless and untied, and for a year it struggled to spread its gospel of neck freedom. But it was no good. The habit of clothing the neck in stiff starch or in the clinging folds of the soft collar proved to bo too deeply ingrained, and most of the members of the league have gone bark to tho oldtime subjection. Not so long ago there was perhaps no area in the world so subject to change to suit individuality or lo meet the vagaries of tho mode as the Jew inches between man’s chin and qjavicle. A famous statesman gave his name to the “Gladstone” collar, in. which his chin could be sunk in a. cut-out r area over tho stud, while the points ol the collar rose nearly to the corners of the month—a conceit which enabled the very poorest of cartoonists to 'indicate with absolute certainty the famous Liberal leader. This was the first Victorian essay in collars that “were different,” hut the succeeding years saw a veritable orgy in variety ami extravagance. THE FOUR-INCH “ MASHER.” “ The Masher ” —ho was a. typo once upon a time, although lie seems cow to bo as dead as his nickname—looked upon the world over 4 in of starched expanse, leading Phil. May to frame a jest about “ a donkey looking over a white-washed wall.”* Those of us who were not sufficiently well equipped by Nature to stretch our necks in such a refinement of the Chinese torture of the “ cangue ” _ did our best to peep over 3in of stiffness, and found the edge uncomfortably sharp to the gills. Then arrived the double collar, first very_ tall and uncomfortable, and requiring enormous skill in the adjustment of the tie, which always stuck in the back of the curve of the neck, and usually tore when, in desperation, one wrenched at it. In fact, some people believed that the haberdashers had invented the double collar in order to profit by tho mortality among neckties. All this time the straight collar was fighting a rearguard action in its attempt to avoid extinction, and it put up its greatest stand in the evenings and upon official occasions. For while the greatest beau might wear a double collar in a lounge suit, he was under pain , of being considered beyond tho pale unless he adopted an uprightness of collar when clad in 8 " boiled shirt.”

The straight collar won tlie light, hutonly on a compromise.. It allowed itself to be turned bade at the throat and equipped with little wings, and upon those attributes of the butterfly —or tho cherub—rt fluttered its way into a popularity which lias remained for eveming wear lor nearly two decades. Tins, with the low double collar and the soft variety, patterned to match tho shirt or not (according to one’s neck taste), has stabilised men’s neckwear—to use a technical expression. Indeed, our mercer, with tho fifty years’ experience, points out that, although even now there are orders for the “Gladstone’ or the “ Beaufort,” 3Jin of starch is a rarity, and the demand for perpetually changing shapes has completely disappeared. TilF FRIDAY TIE. And with it has gone the immense variety of tho ties which at; one time filled shop windows. How queer they seem nowadays! Many of them were “ made np,” because no man could hope ever to tie them as they were supposed to be presented. There was one that bunched up under the chin, and boasted a supposed pearl to keep it tied and properly settled. There was another which spread out nearly over the chest, so that it was known as the “ chestprotector ” or among base fellows <T the lewder sorts as tlie “ Friday tie,” because its noble expanse could he ~eJicd upon to hide the ravages of the week upon the pristine whiteness oi one’s linen. But tics, one imagines, are being somewhat undermined in some circles by tho freedom which has descended upon earth as a result of the soft collar. Every year—at least, at holiday lime and in the warmer months—more and more people wear tho cricket shirt and no tie, and the affectation among tho jeunesse doree of a certain tvjro is to wear their shirts in Byronic fashion, with tho ends spread carefully oyer the coat. Shirts are being made with what might bo termed permanent “turn-hacks,” in order that tho young blood may expose his mainly bosom with the same freedom as his sister or his fiancee reveals her dainty throat. On the other hand, tho superior classes wear their open collars with a difference. It it with them do rigueur to turn up the collar negligently, and so to maintain it. It is the old difference between the “ made-up tie ” and the “self-tied” variety again manifesting itself.