Tricky White

[Luca]

Despite being a neutral and essentially attractive color*, white seems to me like a very difficult one to deploy effectively. I am, of course, excluding form that consideration white shirts and undergarments, of course, which are universally easy to work with aesthetically pleasing.

White jacket or trousers.
Aside from the fact that the slightest exposure to dust or grime will make a white-besuited person look soiled in an instant, white trousers or jackets present several problems:
- It is almost always more pleasant if the closer the garment is to the person, the lighter the color and as you move outward the garments get darker. Implicitly, then, a white jacket or trousers imply a white shirt. In the case of white trousers that means that if you take off your jacket, you are entirely dressed in white and can look like an ice cream vendor, male nurse or sailor.
- Just as black/charcoal/navy blue slim you, white bloats you. IF you look like the current crop of rail-thin models, all white might work; for the rest of us, avoid it.
- A white SUIT simply magnifies the issues expounded above
Overall though, I think white trousers are marginally easier than a white jacket.

White ties.
Other than the white bow-tie worn with tails, naturally. I would say that a white tie looks awful / NY wise-guy-esque with anything except a white shirt and even then…. Considering how much more elegant an every very light grey tie would look, why do white ties even exist? The same goes for white jumpers (sweaters).

White shoes.
I am theoretically fond of white shoes in the ‘white bucks’ / ‘white Converse All-stars’ category. But again, they quickly look soiled, etc. I don’t think it’s easy to pull off whit bucks. White leather is, to my taste, an abomination (except as part of a Guard’s military uniform’s armamenta).

Apparent exceptions that aren’t
“but what about Tom Wolfe!?!”, I hear you ask? “What about David Hemmings in “Blowup”? Etc.
I think that if you take a very stylish person . look they ca obviously bear a greater deal of ‘stress-testing’ but in many of those cases they could have improved the look with a bit less white, IMO.

I am seriously Considering getting rid of my rather nice white linen jacket…

Thoughts? Counterexamples?


* strictly speaking, black and white are not colors, I know, but for our purposes they might as well be.

[couch]

I think the secret to wearing white is to vary the shade. The crisp bright white shirt with off-white linen or flannel trousers (or now, "stone" colored khakis) has been a successful look for decades, or if you count the off-white or "natural" linen suit, for more than a century. Likewise a "winter white" jumper, say a Shetland, with a bright white shirt and darker trousers, can look fine, as can an off-white or "natural" white wool cricket-style jumper. I agree with you that pure white long ties are almost impossible to use well, though I've seen one or two "natural" white wool and linen ties (sometimes with a pale stripe) used effectively with white shirts and textured jackets (one clear sky blue tweed stays in memory). But I do think today that these mixed whites work best as informal looks; once a clear worsted cloth enters the picture all bets are off. Thus the white jeans of the photographer in Blow Up (where the white in the blue-striped shirt is crucial to maintaining the luminosity near the face you so rightly mention). Such informal use somewhat mitigates the impact of smudges--as with white bucks, a too-perfect purity can seem studied. The one exception to this informality is the white summer DJ (which of course should not be a pure white), although I smiled on watching the movie "Sabrina" again recently when the old patriarch excoriates this new fashion (in 1954!) of white DJs, insisting they make people look like waiters.

But this isn't so bad:



Speaking of white, I recently watched the 1934 Cary Grant film Kiss and Make-Up (a complete piece of silliness, but interesting for period styles); it has a scene with couples dancing in the background that includes several men in white Spencers--I think it's only time I've seen captured on film the one year when they were considered fashionable before being relegated to service staff (and of course, military mess dress).

[hectorm]

I am seriously considering getting rid of my rather nice white linen jacket…

And.....what size do you aproximately wear?
BTW, Tow Wolfe does not look good in all-white.

I recently watched the 1934 Cary Grant film Kiss and Make-Up....I think it's only time I've seen captured on film the one year when they were considered fashionable

Two years. This add for a dot.com is (originally) from 1933.

[couch]

Perhaps. The film was released in July of 1934, so presumably filmed in late 1933 or early '34. In any case, somewhere in the AA articles quoted in Etutee's posts the writers mention the very brief vogue for mess jackets not being sustained into the following season.

[JCH]

Regarding mess jackets, which I did not know go by "spencer" as well, and though I'm not sure these are on all fours, for fun here are two cites from Etutee's posts:

[Vol. I No. V (Sept '05) Summer Resort Part II AA Esky pdf (page 10 of 17)] Summer 1933:

"Double breasted dinner jackets first and foremost. However, important to note is the tremendous increased use of white mess jackets in the more exclusive places; the Colony Club, Whitehall, Passy, Everglades, and the Patio Marguery. Although this garment is correct only for on boat wear, from which it has been adapted, its increased use by the class of people we have seen wearing it here may be the beginning of a permanent summer fashion, although we really see greater possibilities, in the small beginnings here this season, for the single breasted, shawl collar, white linen-dinner jacket, worn with black tie and trousers. The summer dinner coat shirt is defiantly a soft collar attached one. This, as you already know is the accepted thing at Yale and Princeton; both young and old are using it here. The tie is semi-butterfly."

[Vol. II No. IV (April '06) Spring-Summer Palm Beach AA pdf. (page 15 of 44)] Summer of 1934:

"The white dinner jacket is essentially a fashion that has grown out of another fashion. The first radical change in evening dress appeared some four years ago with the introduction of the white mess jacket,[] which received immediate acceptance nationally, culminating in the point where it was taken up by bell- hops, orchestra members and others. But at least a tradition was broken and men had gone on record as accepting a departure in their summer formal kits."

[Costi]

I am seriously Considering getting rid of my rather nice white linen jacket…

Thoughts? Counterexamples?

[Costi]

or these...

[Costi]

that, too

[Costi]

+ a white tie

[Costi]

...and some overcoats

[hectorm]

...and some overcoats

I´m not sure whether all the pictures posted by Costi will dissuade Luca from giving up white (and his linen jacket ) but I specially loved the images of the overcoats.
These were garments not considered by Luca and I believe there is a strong case in their favor. As the images show, nobody could mistake them for lab coats.

[couch]

Yes, the oyster-colored raincoats are classic, as is the off-white or stone-colored cotton suit (or the cream patch pocket DB suit in Costi's other image, which I suspect was in a summer cloth such as Palm Beach cloth, linen, summer flannel, or gabardine). Of course off-white or buff linen vests (and sack-wristed gloves, once upon a time, as in the Eden pic) have been mainstays in formal and dressy daywear, but there you see a only a small area of the off-white in the context of darker garments, avoiding the wearability problems the OP is concerned about.

I can't warm to the apparently stark white riding jacket or its matching white tie; I suspect that outfit would look very odd most places if worn riding today, unless perhaps as part of a team kit*. White, buff, or beige breeches or jodhpurs go back a long way; as the OP said, trousers are marginally easier, and with formal hunt dress or equestrian competition we are closer to the arena of bold color contrasts characteristic of military and sporting uniforms and historic costume (not to mention modern washable technical fabrics):





Thanks to JCH for digging up the relevant AA quotes. I stand corrected: I had remembered correctly that by mid-'34 the mess jacket fashion was on its way out, but I had misremembered how early it had appeared. So it seems the vogue had a three- or four-year run. Still not something you see often in films.

*A blog comment from October 2011: "I asked Equiport to make this white show jumping jacket for my daughter for HOYS, Ash from Equiport said “WHITE are you sure”, my daughter wanted something different. The judges would not let her wear it at HOYS to everyones disgust."

[hectorm]

I think that if you take a very stylish person . look they can obviously bear a greater deal of ‘stress-testing’ but in many of those cases they could have improved the look with a bit less white IMO
Counterexamples?