The first was the notch lapel dinner jacket. The notch is standard issue for business suits and blazers, and is technically not correct formalwear. Some years ago, maybe around the time guys starting embracing sneakers as appropriate footwear for a night out, the business/casual lapel snuck its way into evening wear and now illicitly crashes formal events like the Golden Globes. The correct lapel for a dinner jacket, whether single or double-breasted, is a peak lapel or a shawl collar.
The second party crasher that men have grown to not just tolerate but actually embrace is the standard necktie. Even though it’s made of black silk, it ain’t black tie. This trend, especially when conspiring with the notch lapel jacket, produces a legion of men who look like they’re pallbearers at a funeral. Black tie affairs are celebrations that deliberately break from “normalwear,” asking men to step it up with a flair that purposefully transcends business, casual and funeral modes. Bow tie, please.
My third nit-pick is the cummerbund, or lack thereof. In black tie, we should not see any shirt white below the jacket button. A double-breasted dinner jacket takes care of this by itself. But the typical single-breasted dinner jacket leaves a little space between the jacket button and the trouser’s waist band, exposing some shirt. A well-dressed man at a black tie affair takes care of this with a cummerbund.
A fourth (and minor) peeve is the wing collar. I don’t like them. Exceptions: as a groomsman in a morning suit at a wedding, as a waiter in a high-end restaurant in a waist coat or tails, or as a poker dealer or magician in a casino. Otherwise, go with a tuxedo shirt with a straight-point or spread collar.
I’ll not go into the long list of attendees at last night’s show who violated one, two or all three (or even four) of these formalwear fuck-ups, but I will say that George Clooney and Jon Hamm, my two favorite red carpet race horses, let me down. And Bill Murray – this month’s GQ cover model – sported a shirt collar and tie combo that flat-out freaked me out.
On the flip side, there were some sartorial superstars who brightened the night. My runners-up for the best-dressed man of the evening were Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, Aziz Ansari, Alan Arkin, Judd Apatow, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and my favorite unsung, well-dressed dark horse of the red carpet: Bryan Cranston. Even Lady Seacrest knocked it out, very well-tailored in gray. But my clear favorite was no surprise: Daniel Craig. Daniel went with a single-breasted Tom Ford dinner jacket with peak lapels, breaking from the perfectly squared pocket hanky by carefully stuffing it into the pocket. As a nominee, Mrs. Craig (in Louis Vuitton) was the focus. Perhaps in an effort to hide a little and give Rachel her spotlight, Daniel hid his baby blues behind a smoking pair of tortoise horn-rimmed shades, producing a total movie star package.
Correct black tie is not the arena for experimentation, garish self-expression or “mixing it up,” as it were. There are rules. But within those rules, we have room for elegant, nuanced movement. Color? Go with a midnight navy, purple or even scarlet. We can choose a single or double-breasted jacket. Lapels? Shawl or peak. Then there is perfect tailoring, which is a mark that many guys miss by a long shot. Beyond that, the need to stand out and be different should be satisfied by the fact that we have faces.
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