I’d wager that most guys own a white and probably a blue dress shirt, and it seems that back in the 50’s everyone wore the whites. When did other colors become more common to wear with suits, or have they always been so?
It’s fairly recent. I’d say within the last 10 years or so.
More than that. In 2009, Regis Philbin hosted Who Wants to be a Millionaire, dressed in shirts with ties of the same color.
I started seeing them in the 70s. It was a slow process – one or two people would wear a shirt with a little bit of color and gradually more would follow. People who were used to wearing white shirt often didn’t switch over.
When I was working at a stock broker in the 80s, there were more colored shirts than white ones (including those with a colored shirt and white collar).
I’d say 70s as well. All the older fashion codes were breaking. Most offices were far more conservative than the fashion magazines and older men, probably most people over 40 or even over 30, stayed with white a long time. Not hitting 30 until 1980, I wasn’t part of that group. I never wore a white shirt and nobody every said anything to me about dressing more formally.
Not wearing white goes back a lot further if you go outside the office. The 20s were like the 60s in breaking older codes. Fashionable dudes always wore coats and ties, but their shirts were in a wide variety of patterns and colors. I think the Depression tamped down that kind of colorful expression - those years really were in black and white - and it took time for the fashion to swing back.
I remember that; I wondered back then if it was a “cool” look and if I should adopt it.
It was in the 60’s. Carnaby Street fashion was an adjunct of the British Invasion, and non-white dress(y) shirts became popular with the young crowd. During that era my mom worked at the local NBC affiliate and noted that the newscasters wore pale blue shirts, which while appearing white on TV looked better than actual white shirts.
Another vote for the '70s as the time that colored dress shirts became mainstream.
Johnny Carson was doing it in the 1970’s, which made it pretty much acceptable for non-business occasions
By the time newscaswters like David Brinkley started wearing them, the walls were coming down.
Of course, IBM didn’t really relax their “blue suit, white shirt” dress code until the 1990s.
Blue shirts became popular because you couldn’t wear a white shirt on early television - it reflected too much glare. Perhaps that had something to do with it.
Regis started hosting in 1999, not 2009.
The Duke of Windsor has been rocking blue shirts since the 1940s, if not earlier.
You’re right. I forgot which decade we’re in.
I thought it was the brown one he really admired.
