In the United States, it was more often referred to as a full dress protector and sometimes a dress shirt shield and debuted a decade earlier. According to History of Underclothes, it was popular in Britain from about 1897 and consisted of “a pad of white quilted satin faced with white silk.”Ĭollared version from an 1899 Chicago newspaper ad. Dress Shirt ProtectorsĪ more effective version of the muffler was the Victorian dress shirt protector. They also recommended wearing the muffler tied in ascot style. During that period Apparel Arts and Esquireallowed for crepe material, pale yellow color, fringed ends (again) and monogrammed initials. Plain white silk remained the norm until modern times with the notable exception of the glory days of menswear in the 1930s. Said one 1894 newspaper report: “The London dandy prides himself as much on the spotless purity and the expanse of his white silk neck scarfs as the dandy of forty years ago did on his many-colored waistcoats.” In fact, wearing white garments was a point of pride owing to the considerable laundering expense required to keep them clean in soot-filled cities of the time. Most other turn-of-the-century authorities didn’t mention fringed ends and suggested plain white silk. The standard top hat was made of black silk plush (a pile longer and less dense than velvet pile) or felted beaver fur while early collapsible versions were generally made of the former material.Įsquire suggested that dress mufflers be tied ascot style and have a monogram.
That all changed when a collapsible version of the round hat was invented in 1812 which allowed gentlemen to store their headwear under their seats.Īcceptable at first only for informal evening events, tall hat styles became increasingly popular as full-dress attire in the 1820s with the arrival in England of the French top hat. The tall “round hats” worn as daywear were impractical in comparison because they were awkward to carry at a ball and had to be checked at the opera or theater. Also known as a bicorne, it was a crescent-shaped headpiece like the one made famous by Napoleon but was specifically designed as a collapsible hat to be carried under the arm – thus its French name “arm hat”. The Evolution of the Evening Hat The Top Hat and White Tie The Early YearsĪt the turn of the nineteenth century, the chapeau bras was the only hat for evening dress.