Tuxedoes (“black tie”) are party clothes and wedding receptions are, above anything else, parties, usually involving dancing and socializing well into the night. One wouldn’t want the party clothes to make one sweaty, hot, uncomfortable, and possibly smelly and unsociable at the party. Yet nearly all rental tuxedo shirts and many sold at retail are made of polyester or 65% polyester blends, making them more similar to fast-food restaurant uniforms than to common dress shirts. Some of these are now made from “microfiber”, which is a polyester fabric that isn’t as bad as ordinary polyester, but it’s still not nearly as comfortable as cotton. They’re made for ease of cleaning, not comfort.
Concern for the photographs can also sometimes override comfort concerns in determining wedding menswear selection. It often even leads–usually at the bride’s request–to the groom dressing the wedding party in sometimes silly pseudo-formal outfits with long ties and brightly-colored vests instead of time-tested traditional black tie, all because matching the groomsmen to the bridesmaids or the flowers looks cute in retailers’ promotional photos. More legitimately, concern for the photographs has made off-white or ivory tuxedo shirts popular. If a white shirt is whiter than the wedding dress, it can make the dress look yellowed or dirty in photos, and paired with a white shirt, an otherwise white-looking ivory dress can look tan or yellow.
Since they can be worn to every occasion formal and festive enough for black tie, white 100% cotton tuxedo shirts are easy to come by at menswear retailers. But since the only use for ivory tuxedo shirts is at weddings, and even then only for the groom and members of the wedding party, they are largely a product of the rental industry. Menswear specialists like Joseph A. Bank, Brooks Brothers, and Mens Wearhouse do not stock them, nor do J. C. Penney and other department stores that sell formal wear. The few that are sold through Internet retailers like FineTuxedos.com or Tuxedos Direct appear to be rental-industry byproducts and are accordingly made of synthetic fibers.
For grooms and wedding attendants who are expected to wear an off-white shirt but do not want to sweat through the reception, the only solution is getting a shirt made-to-measure. Ordinarily this can be expensive, but recently a few Web businesses have opened that put it in reach of the average man–selling made-to-measure shirts at the price of a high-end off-the-peg dress shirt–by taking advantage of the low cost of labor in Asia. Two online made-to-measure businesses sell tuxedo shirts, and both offer 100% cotton ivory shirtings:
MyTailor.com. Hong Kong’s Hemrajani Bros., who have been selling made-to-measure shirts to Americans for over three decades, operate a few websites for different segments of the market. Their upmarket website is MyTailor.com, which features “tuxedo shirts” as a top-level option
Decorative pleats can be added in various widths, or the front can be left plain. Both the popular “wing” collar and the more refined turndown collar can be had, and the website allows many fine adjustments to be made to suit one’s tastes, but the defaults are a safe option.
Of the several off-white shirtings available, fabric number F57051, a light cream colored two-ply 140s cotton, is the best choice for an ivory tuxedo shirt. At $130, it’s a bit expensive, but the results are a comfortable and durable shirt with quality that can be seen and felt. I had one made for my own wedding and expect to be able to use it whenever I need an ivory tuxedo shirt. It looked white in photographs when framed by a dinner jacket but didn’t make the wedding dress look dingy, and best of all, it is as comfortable as my favorite sport shirts.
Modern Tailor. For a bit less money, one can have an ivory tuxedo shirt from Modern Tailor, a made-to-measure Web business that has received considerable praise on StyleForum.com and the Ask Andy bulletin boards for its workmanship, customer service, and quick delivery of orders. It isn’t obvious on the website that tuxedo shirts are sold; one must first start designing a shirt. Choose either a cutaway or a wing collar (cutaway is best) on the “Collar” tab, a French cuff on the “Cuff” tab, and on the “Options” tab select a tuxedo shirt ($10 extra)
The off-white fabrics are also difficult to find, as they’re grouped with yellows. The two-ply 120s light cream ( #81112, $109.95) is probably the best choice for an ivory tuxedo shirt, but (unlike MyTailor.com) one can order swatches to compare this and the various beige options to a swatch from the wedding dress.
The only way to automatically receive a shirt with holes for studs instead of sewn-on buttons is to select the “Tuxedo” option on the Options tab, which also selects a front with decorative pleats. If a plain-front tuxedo shirt is desired, request that in the “Additional Requirements” box in the Options tab–and to be on the safe side, make a follow-up phone call soon after placing your order.
