shirt collar flipped up in the past?

[gregory]

I have very little knowledge about clothing during the past but I was watching the movie production of Phantom of the Opera and noticed that many of the male characters wore shirts with their collars flipped up. This happened in cases where a tie was worn, some sort of scarf (?) was worn and nothing was worn (open-necked).

Can someone explain why did this happen in the past and why is this not acceptable today?

Thanks.

 

[j]

It's actually not 'flipped up', it's a standup collar, and the modern turn-down collar is a newer variation on that. There was a thread about this a long while back, but essentially, the move to the soft attached collars came about after ww1 I believe, when the soldiers rediscovered the comfort afforded by the softer self-fabric attached collars of the shirts as opposed to the hard starched separate collars that had been recently in favor.

 

[gregory]

Thanks j. I will try searching the styleforum for that discussion. But I really liked the look of these standup collars with some sort of scarf around them -- I thought the whole thing was really elegant.

 

[mnemonic]

hello. actually, it was eric cantona, manchester united's bad boy from france, that invented the flipped up collar. please see below.

in the final image, he is kicking a fan on the sidelines during a match because the fan was heckling him.

johnny.