# What makes a tux a tux? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2001, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568 "2001-03-26T18:13:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/21 "2001-03-27T19:28:15Z")
Telemark: The story I heard was that some Prince of Wales (Edward VII? Edward VIII?) was attending a party at a place called Tuxedo Park. I assumed it was in London, but maybe it was New York. Everyone else dressed formally (white tie and cutaway tailcoat). The prince showed up wearing a black tie and what would later be called a tuxedo jacket. Everyone was scandalized, but within a week, everyone started wearing tuxedos. Oh, and regarding cummerbunds: Men wear them pleats-up (gentlemen used to use them as pockets to carry their opera tickets). When women wear them (they are a part of some military uniforms), they wear them pleats-down. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/22 "2001-03-27T19:37:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \* > \*\*You’re wearing a tuxedo. Maybe a white dinner jacket. How do people know you’re not the waiter? \*\* By how hard you hit them after they wave you over and ask, “Garcon?” :D:D I almost jokingly did that to the father of the bride at a wedding reception I went to this weekend. He would’ve appreciated it, but the room was just too busy, and he had his hands full thanking everybody. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/23 "2001-03-28T01:43:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by plnnr \* > \*\* > > Don’t wear a fake bow tie - learn how to tie a real one. You can tie your own shoes, right? Its the same principle -its just around your neck and you have to do it while looking in the mirror. Long ties (along with bollo ties, etc.) are out. > Remember that rules were made to be broken. > \*\* Which is a good thing since I can’t stand the thought of me in a bow tie 🙂 > [@](#): > > \*\* > Don’t wear sneakers with a tux. You may think you’re being cool or making some statement about how much you’re really a jeans and sneakers kind of guy and just wearing the tux because you have to. In reality, you look like a complete ass. \*\* That last sentence was gratuituous. But, I do agree that the sneakers-with-tux schtick should be reserved for Mr. Letterman, since as a subversive gesture it lost all novelty about 30 seconds after its first appearance. Me, I just assume that 90% of those present are ALSO wearing the damned thing just because somebody said they had to. 😃 JRD ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/24 "2001-03-28T02:22:32Z")
**plnnr** Loved your discourse on dressing. Having gone to U. Richmond some time ago, and married a Richmond girl(and her family), I can appreciate what you said. However, would you care to comment on this? > [@](#): > > Cecil, for example, was invited a while back to a bash with a nautical theme advertised as “creative black tie.” Half the guys showed up in tuxedo jackets and jams, but Cecil stole the show with white Izod shorts, Topsiders, tuxedo shirt, $6 black studs and cufflinks, white tuxedo jacket with black pseudo-velvet trim ($7 from Salvation Army), all topped off with matching sky-blue bowtie and cummerbund featuring palm trees and sailboats. If I had been any cooler I would have been assumed bodily into heaven. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/25 "2001-03-28T13:06:27Z")
“Creative black-tie,” like military-intelligence, is an oxymoron. If the soiree’ is special enough to warrant wearing a tuxedo, get into the spirit of things and actually wear a tuxedo. All the poor shlubs that show up in tux jackets and cut-off jeans or some silly variant thereof will take one look at you in your understated and classic elegance and wish their wives had talked them out of wearing whatever costume their in. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/26 "2001-03-28T14:30:13Z")
[This site](http://www.formalwear.org/public/resources/tuxedo.html) seems to have the most complete information on the origin of the suit and the name. The short jacket was invented by the future Edward VII (and we all thought he was a useless drunk). A useless (and maybe drunk) rich Yank named Griswold Lorillard (of the tobacco Lorillards) got the idea from him, wore one to a party at the family estate in Tuxedo Park, NY, and became the hit of that whole social circle of useless rich drunks. The practicality of not having to sweep long tails aside before sitting surely contributed to its acceptance. Further useless trivia: The first gold record was awarded to Glenn Miller for “Tuxedo Junction”, named after the train station (nas a good beat, hard to dance to, but fun to listen to anyway). Don’t flame me about Caruso’s “Vesti la Giubba” being the first million-selling album. I said the first gold record, OK? ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568/27 "2001-03-28T15:31:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mbh \* > Oh, and regarding cummerbunds: Men wear them pleats-up (gentlemen used to use them as pockets to carry their opera tickets). When women wear them (they are a part of some military uniforms), they wear them pleats-down. WAG about why this is: since the fasteners on women’s clothing are on the opposite side from men’s, a woman confronted with a standard cummerbund fastened it upside down. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-tux-a-tux/59568.md?page=1)