Nouveau Black Tie

There are apparently no more rules…in fashion. Why? Because rules, much like tradition, must be passed down in the written word or taught orally. Kids don’t read anything longer than a caption these days and a majority of the menswear elders are gone. Or not on Instagram Reels anyway. Nobody knows anything [if I had a dollar for every time someone was sporting a tacked jacket vent, I’d be Bernard Arnault].

When it comes to “dressing the man”…an updated Bible would need to be compiled by a new authority on menswear. Sadly, it wouldn’t be a hard bound book so much as a mediocrely executed TikTok account by a Gen-Zer who’s never laid eyes on Alan Flusser’s crucial source material (read Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion). Anyways, I digress. Rules…

Rules look backwards…at what’s behind. Style looks forward…toward new frontiers. And yet, style, without a foundation in rules, veers into camp rather quickly. It is this sartorial alchemy that intrigues me most in menswear. In the ever increasing casualization of fashion (one recent archival entry being finance bros trading in the once mandatory suit for the Patagonia down vest and tattersall shirt uniform), what is the way forward for tailored clothing in fashion…much less menswear?

Fred at the Met Opera House in an F.E. Castleberry cream wool dinner jacket, blue Oxford cloth tuxedo shirt, and black calf opera pumps paired with an Adidas Originals track pant.

A couple years ago, I ran into Flusser at a party on the Upper East Side and he was in black tie…black double breasted dinner jacket, white tuxedo shirt, and black velvet smoking slipper but he’d paired them with a black Adidas track pant. It blew my mind a little. Thinking Flusser had suffered a minor stroke on the back nine of his illustrious career, I leaned over to his right hand man and discreetly inquired, “How long’s this been going on?” to which he replied, “Oh, this is a thing he does now. He’s absolutely serious about it.”

For me, his formalwear-athleisure cocktail left a little to be desired (the design wasn’t the best choice in my humble opinion, and the execution was a little sloppy) but the idea excited me for a couple reasons.

One: here was the author of the menswear Ten Commandments publicly toying with the high/low of a black track pant in a formalwear ensemble.

Two: in his old age, it was inspiring to witness that clothes, and new ideas about wearing them, still held his imagination.

Outside the Met Opera House in front of Alexander Calder’s, "Le Guichet" (The Box Office) 1963.

I left the party that evening tucking the idea into my mental style file for the next black tie occasion. When I took in the opera Champion at the Met last month, I thought it the perfect “formalwear-optional” occasion to try my hand at the high/low ensemble. What I attempted to great effect was this: double breasted cream jacket over a blue Oxford cloth tuxedo shirt. Then, the pièce de résistance that truly makes the track pant work—a black cummerbund, cleverly concealing the elastic waistband—polished off with an F.E. Castleberry evening opera pump.

Formalwear. Streetwear. Westernwear. Athleisure. Tailored clothing. It’s everything everywhere all at once. It’s this mix that sustains my curiosity in fashion…and in menswear, more importantly. This is our present and our future. This is nouveau black tie.