For a Summer's Evening
Summer is upon us in a week, which gives American men (and Europeans travelling to America or the Caribbean) an excuse to wear their white or other pale colored summer evening jackets on appropriate occasions. Those occasions are of course semi-formal outdoor events or indoor venues where the guests are able to spend time out of doors (a minute or two is all that is necessary really). And that gives us reason to discuss appropriate dress, complementing yesterday's post.
Now assuming that a man already owns a dinner suit in a not terribly heavy weight, then he can wear those trousers and only needs an appropriately colored jacket to participate in summer's rites. Not that a jacket is absolutely necessary, for black or midnight blue evening clothes are always appropriate, but a change of pace is a pleasureable thing. And though summer is warm, the nights are often cool, so mid-weight cloth is in my experience perfectly reasonable unless one lives in a place like Scottsdale where it may be 110 degrees (45 C) at 10 PM and then my advice is to wear the black and remain indoors. Better yet, go somewhere else for the season. But I digress.
According to the late George Frazier in Esquire, A. J. Drexel Biddle, who Frazier considered one of a handful of the best dressed men in America in the middle of the twentieth century despite a prediliction for, in my opinion, disproportionately small necktie knots, wore "single breasted white gabardine" coats on his semi-formal summer evenings. White or cream gabardine is my own choice in a 13 ounce/400 gram weight (the stuff also comes in 9 ounce/270 grams if you must) that drapes well and is comfortable in either air conditioning or sea breezes for the tight weave does not trap air next to the skin and warm it up. Other jacketing options include linen of course, though it rumples, silk, and worsteds but I like knowing that I have both feet planted firmly in an elegant past.
Now the cummerbund, originally a sash, was invented for warmer weather occasions when a waistcoat might be too much to bear, and civilized readers will take care to cover their waists despite the poor example set by Hollywood's badly dressed leading men in recent years. Remember, the missing cummerbund is not a statement of fashion so much as an oversight when the dinner jacket makers loan their clothing for an awards appearance to a celebrity whose own wardrobe contains none of the appropriate accessories. But again I digress. Usually black, the cummerbund may be colored though personally I prefer to limit colored accessories to my socks and pocket square. Burgundy is always a good choice, as are dark blue, dark green or purple. Opera pumps and a black banded boater hat are options.
Now some readers may be asking themselves where they might wear such a costume, which means that a) they are too old to be attending a prom and b) their country club no longer has jacket-required dinner dances. To that I say, buy your wife a new dress and take her to dinner under the stars at least once this season. And dress yourself for a summer's evening.
Jackets for Summer Evenings
Perhaps less has been written on the topic of summer evening dress than on any other subject connected to menswear. This may be because until recently the English have had no summer (I believe it was Byron who wrote that winter in England ends in July and begins in August) but whatever the reason we are for the most part left to adapt cool weather customs to the heat on our own.
Summer of course is the time for lighter colors, and that is something that can be applied to evening with some success as well. When men still dressed for dinner, they wore cream or white jackets in the Caribbean and other colonies, and though the opportunities for semi-formal summer dress are relatively rare, one option as I wrote in May is the white or off-white double breasted jacket in linen, gabardine or silk depending on the climate in which it will be worn. The traditional summer semi-formal jacket does not have silk lapels and by substituting peak for shawl a man has himself a coat that can be dressed up with a bow tie, pleated shirt and dinner trousers or dressed down with less formal accessories.
That line of reasoning leads one inevitably into the topic of odd jackets for evening, and though I am generally against them for fall and winter lighter color odd jackets have a place in the heat. Properly accessorized, light blue or tan solids or semi-solids with silk or mohair in the weave have much the same flavor as a cream dinner jacket, and those colors were once seen in shawl collared versions as well. The combination of a light jacket and dark trousers is to my eye a better look for evening than a matching jacket and trousers in any of those same lighter colors.
Now I will say that none of this precludes the same dark lounge suits and dinner jackets that are worn the rest of the year, in lighter cloth to suit the temperature. In fact, the more densely urban the environment, the better those dark colors look. Just as the white dinner jacket was worn at the sea shore or for open air events, todays' lighter color odd jackets are more appropriate in the Hamptons than Manhattan.
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