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White collar/cuffs on colored shirts

Nick M

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Is there an official name for this look (the white collar/cuffs on different color/pattern shirt). Â My Japanese tailor calls it "cleric", but I'm not sure if that's just standard Japanese "adopted English" or not.
I've always heard the configuration termed a 'Winchester'.
Also, for the 'turn-up' cuffs, is there a more official name as well? Â The same tailor calls them "Milano" cuffs. Â Does anyone know what I'm talking about??
Like this?
neopolitan1tj.jpg
Cocktail cuff, turnback cuff, James Bond cuff, Neopolitan cuff, etc... I have actually heard a different origin for the white collars/cuffs on a colored shirt. The story goes that upper-class gentlemen liked the look of the colorful patterned shirts of their lower-class brethren, but it wasn't considered 'proper' to wear colorful shirts in polite society. Solution: Colorful shirt body, 'proper' white collar.
 

gorgekko

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little too Gordon Gekko for my usual dealings.
Sir, that is an outrage.
 

Walter

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I think they look great with a low button, low gorge 4 button db suit and tassle loafers.
 

Luc-Emmanuel

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It sucks. And that tie... I mean, I haven't seen such a pattern since the beginning of the 90s. Awful.

Think of London, big city :
Contrasting collar == american.

Plus, it does not look good.

.luc
 

Alexander Kabbaz

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Sir, that is an outrage.
Fret not, GG, it's handled. Meet us there if you wish. Black leather m.c. jacket, white "mississippi riverboat captain" shirt, chinos:
Midnight. Thursday. Under the West Side El at 15th. Your choice: Pens or swords.
 

dah328

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From a pragmatic perspective, I don't think they look good on smaller men because they have a partitioning effect between the torso and the neck.

dan
 

STYLESTUDENT

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I think they look great with a low button, low gorge 4 button db suit and tassle loafers.
Walter,

If there are problems with my Aldens, OK. But it's spelled "tassel".
 

globetrotter

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all of my dress shirts are like this (to be accurate, I have a bunch of french blue shirts that I wear to the office but not to meetings or customers). one advantage is that you can keep the shirt for pretty much your whole life, are replace the collar and cuffs as needed. the other big advantage is if you wnat people to think that you are a pompous bastard - this shirt style pretty much covers it for you.

I think also that having white collar against your face is somewhat flatering, and the stripes give me a little lenghening affect. it also alows me to have shirts with pretty wild patterns of stripes, while still fitting a pattern that I wear on a regular basis and looking formal.
 

topcatny

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I don't mind them, but I don't and won't wear them myself. They are just not for me. I think they can look very good on others though.
 

RJman

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hmmmmmeeeuuuurrrrrrrgh (blah morning). As our friend Kaga would say, "IMMSMC" (sic) the story I've read was that dress shirts were originally white, and of course it was a pain keeping them clean -- which was a quick indicator of class as the best off would have more than one shirt and so could rotate them, etc. As stripes and colors in shirting started to be worn, some suspected that such shirts would be worn by the less well-off to hide the telltale dirt. As such, the white collar and cuffs were de rigueur to show that while one was wearing a pattern or a color, one could also afford to keep clean garments. Of course, as Richard Nixon (another beacon of freedom to many on this forum I'm sure) famously stated, "I could be wrong."
 

trogdor

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I have actually heard a different origin for the white collars/cuffs on a colored shirt. The story goes that upper-class gentlemen liked the look of the colorful patterned shirts of their lower-class brethren, but it wasn't considered 'proper' to wear colorful shirts in polite society. Solution: Colorful shirt body, 'proper' white collar.
That's what I had always heard; you could still be "white collar", even if you preferred the dulcet tones of the shirts of your "blue collar" inferiors.

Anyway, you have to admit that you always look bad-ass in such a shirt. I have a pink bodied one, and it never fails to get a compliment.

Like Tyto, though, I can't get away with it a lot; I'm an academic philosopher, and it's a bit too much of a departure from my profession's corduroy-jacket-and-button-down uniform.

A question: I heard that single cuffs (either in white or in the same colour as the body) are not appropriate for such a shirt (perhaps the level of formality requires a french cuff). ANy thoughts?
 

Millerp

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Flusser's opinion is that white collared shirts with colored bodies should always have spread collars and turnback cuffs. Will
But then of course, there's Brooks Brothers
 

Concordia

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I believe that this whole fashion predates soft collars, and is entirely a function of there being only white collars/cuffs available, no matter what the shirt color: http://www.newandlingwood.com/iashop.....egory=9 FWIW, I once heard the head of a prominent endowment speak about their process of vetting external money managers. (Most endowments are run in this way, with outside firms being chosen to run a small slice of the whole). The betting among the staff was that if a manager or hedge fund showed up and the marketing guy had a white collar with a blue shirt, they'd get shown the door. For some other reason, of course, but the correlation was high. Too much sizzle for a sober audience. I don't mind the look, but I'd save it for the summer cocktail parties.
 

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