Overdressed

For our wedding, we outfitted The Serene One in tails, a white vest and white tie (not bowtie). Since I figured we would continue to attend various dance events, we bought the kit, rather than renting it. We even had the vest front pointed, so that it matched the points of his tail coat. It worked out well. We've been to at least one white tie event every year since our wedding.

This year however, we seem to be running into black tie events. The SF Symphony Gala is this Wednesday (with Dvorak's 8th Symphony!) and the event is black tie. My friend S's wedding next year is black tie. I'm trying to convince The Serene One that we should buy him a tux jacket, since a jacket with tails is technically overdressing for black tie.

The Serene One is adamant that one set of formalwear is plenty for him. The example set by the Emmys is in the opposite direction. EW reported that men showed up in standard shirt and tie, no tie and open-necked shirts. EW also lamented that the bowtie is dying out.

Non sequitur 1: The death of the bowtie must be connected to high school dances. I know I have a firm association of cummerbunds and baby's breath corsages with high school dances.

Non sequitur 2: I heard once that the right way to wear a cummerbund is so the pleats face upwards, ie, so they can catch crumbs. The big question is: why?

Tom Hanks in "Big" wore white tie and tails (with silver embroidery) to his company party. If he can carry that off, I'm sure The Serene One can carry a black tailcoat off at a black tie party.