The tuxedo suit is
black-tie eveningwear for men in American and international fashion. It is characterized by black
trousers with one or two stripes of
satin running down the side of each pant leg, and a black waist-length jacket with
satin-lined lapels. Sometimes these suits are made with a
waistcoat, but, in American tradition, they are more frequently worn with a pleated
cummerbund.
The stylings of the tuxedo are a mystery to most. Of course, black has been the color of Western
eveningwear for centuries, but the lining and the cut of a tuxedo is, relative to typical
sartorial design, quirky -- to say the very least. Why do tuxedos look the way they do? Who invented the tuxedo, why did he do it, and where? From what did the term "tuxedo" even come? To answer these questions, one must know a bit of one's history.
In the 17th century,
Algonquin Native Americans contolled expansive areas of land in the northeastern quarter of the
North American continent. Tribes ruled regionally, and regions were often named for the tribal chiefs, called
sachums, who ruled them. One of these regions, just forty miles northwest of modern-day
New York City, was controlled by a chief called
P'tauk-Seet ("Round Foot," the
Algonquin metonym for the bear), and he lent his name to this region, whose most outstanding feature was its lake.
New York, however, was conquered, and divided into twelve counties in 1683, and in 1707, the
Cheescock Patent, a large parcel of land containing that lake, was granted by
Queen Anne to a party of Englishmen who never arrived in America to claim it. It was thence forth called by mutations of its original name,
P'tauk-Seet-Tough ("Home of the Bear"), until much of it was repossessed on a defaulted loan by
Pierre Lorillard III, son of the legendary
New York City-based
tobacconist, in 1852.
Upon the death of
Pierre Lorillard III,
P'tauk-Seet-Tough was inherited by his son,
Pierre Lorillard IV. With the collaboration of wealthy associates such as
Waldorf Astor,
Pierre Lorillard IV made his 13,000 acres of wooded wilderness into an exclusive hunting and fishing resort, which he called
Tuxedo Park. The property was walled, and in 1885,
Lorillard IV contracted a corps of Italian
artisans to construct residences on its grounds. Those who lived on the property and participated in its sport were the constituency of the socially elite
Tuxedo Club.
Now, there is absolutely no doubt that the tuxedo suit owes its name to the
Tuxedo Club, but there is some dispute as to how it actually came about. According to virtually all evidence, the story I will give to you here seems to me the most likely:
In 1885, a member and founder of the
Tuxedo Club,
James Brown Potter, befriended
Prince of Wales and future
King of England Edward VII.
Edward VII had always been known for his fashions; it was he who popularized leaving the bottom button of a
waistcoat undone, creasing trousers from side to side, and wearing a black tie in the evening. At a formal dinner which
Potter attended with
Edward VII, the
Prince forewent standard
white-tie attire for an abbreviated midnight blue jacket lined in
satin -- essentially an English
riding and
hunting jacket (this is where the cut of most modern tuxedos comes from). He claimed that he had no care for convention, and that he liked the mobility that wearing a sportier jacket afforded him. Of course the royal family (with whom
Potter and
Edward VII were dining) were used to the
Prince's antics, but
Potter immediately admired this new fashion, and had the
Prince's tailors at
Henry Poole & Son (who are still on the
Savile Row today) make him a black
facsimile of the then-
semi-formal jacket, to his measurements.
Later that year,
Potter attended a
Tuxedo Club formal dinner at Delmonico's Steakhouse in New York City -- wearing, of course, his brand new jacket. While many diners at the restaurant poked fun at
Potter's dress, other
Tuxedo Club members became enamoured with it, and, as those wealthy folk do, had copies of it made for themselves. According to popular lore, when people talked about the new
Tuxedo Park fashion, they would say "That's what they're wearing tonight at
Tuxedo," and eventually, the name "tuxedo" just stuck to the suit of that jacket paired with standard
formal trousers.
There is another instance, more comical than the last, that has gone down in history as formative to the design of the modern-day tuxedo. In August of 1886, the
Tuxedo Club was holding its first Autumn Ball, an entirely
formal event. Even
J.B. Potter would not wear his tailless jacket. But
Griswold Lorillard, grandson of
Pierre Lorillard IV, and a group of his friends, arrived in mockery of the
Tuxedo Club wearing standard evening jackets whose tails had been sloppily removed, and
scarlet red
waistcoats (scandelous at the time). When it was remarked to
Griswold that he and his young friends looked like Englishmen on a fox hunt, he riposted "Yes, we are hunting for
foxes," and trotted off to hobnob with an attractive young lady -- only after shooting her a wry glare. The young men actually charmed the attendance of the Autumn Ball so that their style was soon emulated, and the colored
waistcoat became a classic accessory to the American tuxedo (although, as also holds true in England, the
cummerbund is the traditional tuxedo waist cloth).
References:
http://www.formalwear.org/public/resources/tuxedo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Lorillard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_County%2C_New_York
http://www.advantagebuyer.com/
http://www.invisibleheroes.com/hero.asp?issue=124
http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,814,00.html