Tuxedos

The other day I happened to be in Sears, which does not occur all that often, looking for a simple table lamp.  They did not have one—not a single lamp of any kind, as far as I could determine, although their web site indicates that they sell many kinds of lamps.

                While walking the length and breadth of the store in search of lamps, I noticed one of their little specialty enterprises housed in a kind of side parlor, featuring men’s formal wear.  They have a similar side parlor selling eyeglasses.  But the formal wear was interesting, because fashions change, and what they were offering on display was the kind of thing that seems to be popular these days for weddings and proms. 

                They had black formal jackets, which looked rather like old-style cutaways or morning coats, each paired with a vest-waistcoat and a matching necktie in festive hues like avocado and mango.  I have seen such things in recent years in photos from, as I noted, weddings and school proms.  Since I was perambulating the store rapidly I did not notice any matching trousers on view, and I casually wondered if they might be black (with a satin stripe, perhaps) or charcoal grey.

                I have donned formal wear, or a tuxedo, exactly three times in my life:  for my prom in junior and senior years of high school in the 1960s, and as an usher at a friend’s wedding in early 1972.  For my high school prom, the standard outfit at that time was white or off-white dinner jacket, boiled-front formal shirt starched within an inch of its life, black bowtie, black trousers with a satin stripe, and a cummerbund (also black).  Think Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger.  Variations from the standard were not really contemplated.

                Just a few years later, at my friend’s wedding, we wore a double-breasted jacket and flared trousers in a kind of dark French blue, with ruffle-fronted shirts of powder blue, and big floppy bowties that matched the jackets.  That was the 1970s, and good riddance to them.  That particular experience helped me decide to forgo formal wear at my own wedding.  It was at a small church, out in the country, and the men simply wore regular suits.  (Mine was black, double-knit—as practically everything was at the time—and it lasted for many years.)

                But I have never worn the usual sort of male tuxedo, with black jacket and trousers.  Black has long played a featured role in my wardrobe, and I’ve had a number of black suits, jackets, and trousers over the years.  Plenty of white shirts and black ties.  But no tuxedos, nor have I wanted one.  I have a friend of the female persuasion who has, more than once, encouraged me to acquire one.  Her husband and sons own tuxedos, and she has argued that, if I got one, I would soon find many occasions on which to wear it.

                I do not think so.  In the forty-two years since I last wore a tuxedo, there has arisen no occasion for me that would have required a tuxedo; indeed, none for which such would even have been appropriate.  That’s not how the course of my life has tended.  Theoretically, if either of my two children should ever have a church wedding, they might ask me to attend in formal dress.  This seems exceedingly unlikely.

                So my appreciation of tuxedos and similar formal wear will remain academic, which is fine.  I can watch the trends come and go by paying attention to whatever they are wearing on televised awards programs.  And I can see the subtle changes that have come to pass (white tie giving way to black tie) in former years by watching Downton Abbey.

                Probably because they are so outside everyday dress, both business and casual, tuxedos seem to partake equally of the elegant and the ridiculous.  I like the joke Garrison Keillor told in the Prairie Home Companion movie, and more than once on the radio program.  “Two penguins standing on an ice floe. And the first penguin says, ‘You look like you're wearing a tuxedo.’ And the second penguin says, ‘What makes you think I'm not?’”  Some folks think that’s pretty funny.  I am one of them.