Formal Forecast: The Return to Black

After a brief excursion into gaudier evening plumage last winter, the cocks of the walk who know their formal fashion are reverting to black, and depending on the niceties of fabric, tailoring and accessories to point up their individuality.

Now we said black. Not midnight blue, not maroon, not burnt ochre. Just black. Black looks and feels right for all formal occasions, which is why it has been firmly entrenched among the knowledgeable for nearly 100 years, ever since an inconsolable Queen Victoria prescribed mourning for her court after the death of Albert. We recommend wearing it today for the very good reason that dramatic black, coupled with the tasteful crispness of white, lends an elegance of uniformity to dress-up affairs that no (concluded on next page) color can match. So leave your rainbow-hued jackets to the funny-type entertainers on TV. You can distinguish yourself in other ways.

Cut, for instance. Dinner duds you'll be partying in this season have happily followed the common-sense trend to natural styling you demand in your day-to-day raiment. Unpadded shoulders, uncompressed body lines, and unbaggy pants tapering cleanly to your instep are just a couple of the features that make for extra-easy comfort at the bar or on the dance floor. (One exception, though, is the tailcoat: when your schedule calls for white tie and tails, there's simply no getting away from the slightly squared shoulders and closely fitted waist of full dress. Tails look right that way and only that way, but, of course, you'll want to avoid exaggeration.) Another fillip for formal wear is the welcome light weight of the new fabrics, including tropical worsted and even flubbed silk. In America, land of Central Heating, this is indeed a worthy innovation.

The dinner jacket, or tuxedo, is now standard fare for all but the most formal after-dark wingdings, and you have your choice of several lapel types, with facings of satin or ribbed silk, matching cuffs on the sleeves or none at all. The sweeping shawl collar is the leading favorite, lean in shape and faced with gleaming satin, but many knowing lads prefer the newer short-pointed peaked lapels of grosgrain silk. A piping of suit fabric outlines some satin collars, while silk dinner jackets employ the same fabric throughout, with no change of texture on the collar facing. Underneath your jacket, the cummerbund can be folded into flat horizontal pleats, or cut with points and buttons to resemble a waistcoat. A bona fide waistcoat is obligatory with tails but it must never show below the slanting front of the jacket.

The shirt you wear can make every difference in how you look. Of course, no business shirt would ever be tolerated for formal attire. The special dress shirt you choose may have either wide or narrow pleats, and the cuffs should be long enough to show half-an-inch of crisp white below your jacket sleeve. The collar should be a semi-wide-spread held in place with stays; starching is neither necessary nor recommended. A new and nifty innovation in dress shirts is a handsome jacquard stripe, alternating sliver-thin, wide-spaced vertical stripings of black and gray on a white pleated bosom. The collars on these shirts are semi-spread and solid white. Wing collars, unattached and sensibly starched, are worn only with tails. Your jewelry should be smartly and elegantly simple and as good as you can afford. Gold studs, set with small stones or pearls, can be an intelligent lifetime investment; cuff links should match studs and be neat and small; outsized links or bediamonded ones look unquestionably gauche. Handkerchiefs are invariably worn by the better-dressed formal-goers; they should, of course, be solid white and of a top-quality linen. A word of caution: do not square your handkerchief in your breast pocket; rather, it should be jammed in with just a few of the points showing. Posies for the buttonhole are strictly optional, but if you dig that sort of thing, make sure you keep the carnation small and white and wear it only with a tailcoat or peakedlapel dinner jacket.

Black is the rule-of-the-evening for shoes and headgear too. Toppers are rarely seen except with tails, for which no other hat is permissible, but with dinner jackets, any number of brim-up or brim-down models are fine. No, you can't wear a derby under any circumstances. Patent leather predominates in the footwear picture, but other leathers are also coming into acceptance because of patent's notorious tendency to crack (try rubbing some Vaseline on yours after a difficult evening of terpsichore -- it helps preserve the finish). Men's evening pumps with grosgrain bows are OK for your night beat, too, and practically regulation with tails.

As a final note to your rules of formality, we'd like to tell you about a Pyrrhic battle that has been raging a number of years over whether a dinner jacket is properly called a dinner jacket or a tuxedo. Ever since the young bloods at New York's Tuxedo Park first donned these tailless garments for an autumn ball in the Eighties (and thereby shocked the gardenias right out of milady's pompadour), there have been those who insist that dinner jacket is the only correct term. Those who call it a tuxedo, they claim, are a breed of corn-fed yahoos who are worthy of nothing but scorn. The tuxedo coterie, on the other hand, holds that the dinner jacket crowd is composed mainly of stuffy, drawing room fops who are as dated as spats and pomaded hair. We take no stand. The choice, gentlemen, is yours.

Comfortably correct for a formal fling are, from left to right, a dinner jacket and trousers of dull-finish, flubbed black Dupioni silk with satin shawl collar, by Lord West, $100; Lord West tie and cummerbund of matching satin, $12.95; Hathaway shirt of imported broadcloth with stitched tucks, $15.95; Stetson oxfords of highly polished calf, $29.95 • After Six tails by Rudofker in a fine tropical worsted, $87.50; bird's-eye pique wing collar shirt, $10, waistcoat, $12.95, and white tie, $2, also by Rudofker; Johnston & Murphy patent leather pumps, $29 • Lord West's La Scala model dinner jacket of jet black imported mohair and worsted with a framed shawl collar of satin and cuffs outlined in satin, $110; cummerbund and tie in matching satin, also by Lord West, $10.95; Arrow shirt with soft knife pleats, $6.50; Florsheim low-cut shoes of black calf, $26.95 • Linett's lightweight black tropical worsted dinner jacket with peaked lapels of ribbed faille, $85; tie and cummerbund of matching silk also by Linett, $12.95; pleated-bosom shirt by Gant of New Haven, $9; square-tongue slip-ons of smooth calf by British Walkers, $26 • After Six's Playboy dinner jacket with narrow satin shawl collar, $45; also available with striped lining at additional cost; Manhattan's Ivy pleat shirt has a small buttondown collar, $6.95; black calf bluchers by Nettleton, $28.