Tab Collars: Do You Own Any? - Page 2

Yes, I own tab collars, all bespoke or MTM.

Though it's principally worn in the U.S. these days, the tab was an invention of the late Duke of Windsor.

I wear collar bars everyday, (I recently switched from spread/full windsor). I also have several shirts that have eyelets with a bar that goes right through the collar and is held in pace by knobs that screw on the end. It raises the knot giving the tie a bit of an arch.

Amazing that he feels that way because I feel totally uncomfortable in a white shirt.

It now seems that he didn't feel comfortable in any sort of shirt !

I make shirts. We rarely receive orders for tab collars these days. that said, I'm sure they will resurface at some point. most guys wearing tab collars these days either don't know or care that they are not in style or have a very personal sense of style. For instance, Tom Wolffe.

I have MTM tab collar shirts (Brooks Bros) as well as bespoke (Kabbaz). While they may not be 'in style' I personally love the 'Viagra for ties' way that a tab really causes the tie to stand up and out, esp while wearing a vest.

Even a tab collar can't hide the resemblance. . .

Do you have any other examples? Else I think it's a bit dangerous to draw that conclusion from just two examples. Nice way of putting it. Your invention?

At the moment I own a blue herringbone Enro tab-collar shirt which I got in Christmas 2003. To me tab collars were the style of the 1960s, The Beatles have worn them. I wasn't born until 1985.

The aesthetics of tab collars puzzle me. Manton at the top of this March 2008 thread said that he likes them. Then in this summer 2010 thread, he says that he now doesn't "think [the tab collar] looks all that great with [his] crane neck and pillar-shaped head." I understand what he means: I too have a crane neck and long narrow face, and wider spreads with a high collar band seem to nicely counterbalance them. Indeed, Flusser's general advice (CLOTHES AND THE MAN (Villard 1989), pp. 70-71) is:

(1) Counterbalance a long, narrow face with a wider-spread collar opening,
(2) Counterbalance a rounder face with a longer-point narrow collar opening.
(3) Swathe a long neck in a high-banded shirt collar.
(4) Clothe a short neck in a short-banded shirt collar.

But then on p. 76, Flusser says that the tab collar's kissing cousin, the pin collar, "looks best on men with a medium to long neck." Makes sense: since the pin and the tab have almost no collar opening, they lengthen the line of the collar points, thus making the collar seem higher in front. But where does this leave crane-necked men with long narrow faces? According to Flusser, they need a wide-spread collar to counterbalance the long face. The tab and the pin can't give them that.

So in Flusser's view, are the tab and the pin best for men with medium to long necks AND wide faces? Maybe: the book's first photo (p. x) shows a wide-faced, medium-necked Cary Grant wearing a pin collar with a shorter band. Looks very good on him.

But then why did the rather narrow- and long-faced Duke of Windsor invent the tab collar (Flusser 1989, p. 78)? If anyone knew how to make clothes flatter his body, he did. Just to the get the "Viagra for ties" look mentioned above?

Any thoughts?

Below is from SkinnyGoomba's OP in the 2010 thread:

One of British TV's greatest proponents of the tab collar appeared for the last time this week...

Most tab collars are custom made nowadays, I had mine custom made too.

Nice find there, tom. Medium neck, wide face. Looks rather good on him. Maybe this is what Flusser meant.

Peter Firth as Harry Pearce in the BBC TV series Spooks, which ended on Sunday night. They were a quirk of his, I think; he wore them almost exclusively whilst tearing around London saving the world week-in, week-out. I wonder where the wardrobe people got them?