The Incredible Shrinking Collar Repost of WSJ.COM (Source Link) with select editing by Eriktampa
Niche menswear labels like Robert Geller and Shipley & Halmos—and Thom Browne, the designer frequently credited, along with Hedi Slimane, as the godfather of the modern skinny suit—have been making smaller collars for some time. But only more recently have big-name brands and mainstream retailers hopped on the bandwagon.
Hot Under the Collar
John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” wielded a straight-point collar that became a disco-era fixture.
Mr. Jennings said that when he joined the Saks team two and a half years ago, “we were talking about it, but we didn’t have a whole lot of it on the floor.” A tour of the store’s men’s floors reveals the extent to which that’s changed. Skip past conservative holdouts like Charvet and Brioni and you’ll find that Burberry and Hugo Boss are making some of the teeniest collars on the market.
Although the trend’s most recent period of reference is the ’80s, when demure collars topped many a blousy shirt, observers are quick to note that the more influential time is the early ’60s, when JFK led men’s fashion trends with trim collars that sat close to the chest. “If you look at neckwear and lapels of that era, it’s very much in line with what’s going on today,” said Jeff Blee, divisional merchandising manager of furnishings and men’s accessories for Brooks Brothers.
But for its newer, even smaller collar styles, Brooks turned the clock back further. “We found old catalogues from the 1930s that listed our four most popular collars of the time,” Mr. Blee said. “Two were fuller collars, but two—the Cornwall and the Clifford—were scaled-down versions. That’s where the newness is for us.” Updated versions of both will appear in the company’s spring collection. (At 2½ inches, the Clifford collar measures nearly an inch shorter than the brand’s traditional Oxford button-down.)
Among dandies, the rounded and labor-intensive pin and tab collars of the ’30s and ’60s are making a comeback. “There’s a lot of good stuff happening with tab collars and pin collars,” noted Alabama-based designer Billy Reid. But the resurgence of the diminutive collar (which has historical ties to rugby and cloth rationing) has very little to do with dressing up—in fact, quite the opposite. “Now guys wear casual shirts with suits or sport coats, whereas in the past they’d only wear a dress shirt,” Mr. Reid pointed out.
Mr. Jennings agreed: “It’s a sportswear thing. Fewer men need to worry about fitting a tie under their collar.” The store’s necktie sales were down last year, and according to studies done by Saks, not as many customers wear neckties to work as they used to.
Some shirt makers have embraced the disappearing necktie as an opportunity to experiment. “We cut a collar that stands up properly when it’s unbuttoned. When you go that route, you can think more creatively about how you make the collar,” said Patrick Grant, director of the bespoke London shirt maker Norton & Sons (where he said customers have asked for shirts with collars as short as an inch and a quarter) and the ready-to-wear line E. Tautz. The challenge in the age of the waning necktie, Mr. Grant suggested, may be to keep men from “looking like extras from ‘Star Trek.'”
To some, now is the perfect moment for a little austerity around the neck. “I think there’s something decadent about a big collar. Look at the Regency period—it was all huge collars and excessive bows,” Mr. Grant said. “But we’re in an era that’s trim and utilitarian.”
But it may not be long before the pendulum starts to swing the other way. “I don’t think that collars can get much smaller without looking extreme,” admitted Frank Muytjens, head menswear designer for J. Crew. For Michael Andrews, a former lawyer who owns a sleekly contemporary tailor shop in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, the return to a more “dramatic, masculine” collar style has been a long time coming.
“I think the whole short collar thing is kind of silly,” Mr. Andrews said—part of a “boarding-school look” that is only flattering to skinny men. “If you have a really long neck, it’ll make you look like a giraffe,” he added. “At the end of the day, certain styles are going to look better or worse on some people.”
Mr. Reid, the designer, concurred that it’s not for everyone, but jokes that he sometimes worries about a man who’d rather wear an oversized collar than risk facing the world in one that’s too small. “That’s something that might need therapy,” he said.
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