The Tuxedo’s Spotty History
I doubt I’ve slipped into a tuxedo more than a dozen times in a relatively long life. Twice as a pre-teen, for the weddings of my two oldest brothers. Rentals, likely from a popular, but cheap, monkey-suit factory on Jericho Turnpike not far from Huntington. I wouldn’t have known the difference about the quality of the threads, but thought it was a gut-buster when on a very cold and snowy late-December day the five of us, before a treacherous car ride to the chapel in Maplewood, New Jersey, posed with Pall Malls hanging (Brando-style) from our mouths. Dad must’ve taken the snapshot, which is still thumbtacked on my bulletin board, while Mom was putting the finishing touches on her outfit. Fancy, fancy, fancy and I was thrilled for the occasion, and had no trouble fastening the clip-on bowtie. If my oldest brother had the jitters about getting hitched, which I doubt, he put on the poker face.
In the accompanying picture, a few years later, all of us (aside from the groom) wore ties and cuff links at the June wedding. The service was, predictably, a snoozer, but at the reception I was a rascal, corralling every single one of the catering staff’s roving silver-platter offerings, sampling shrimp, teriyaki chicken (exotic at that time), marinated beef on a stick, broiled scallops and plump grapes. Mom told me to cool it, for this was a “dignified” affair, but no one else even noticed the little family mascot juggling a 6.5 oz. bottle of Coke with a plate of miniature appetizers. I loved deviled eggs and cocktail franks, but this was a step up, Deluxe City.
Not once in the 1970s did I wear a tux. It’s common today to see “Remember when” photos of late-adolescents wearing once-in-a-generation garish tuxedoes (mismatched plaids, collars as wide as Chris Christie, frilly dress shirts), most of the guys with “freak flag” long hair, from their high school senior prom. That wasn’t for me or my circle of friends, since the American institution (the subject of many Norman Rockwell illustrations) was, like college fraternities, so laughably uncool that it defies a proper explanation.
Let’s just say that prom kings, queens, courtesans, and hangers-on wishing upon a star they’d get lucky, had never heard of Moby Grape or Randy Newman. In 1972 and ’73, attending such a “rite of passage” drew sneers and ribald comments from the Mr. Peanut gallery that I was part of, uncharitably judgmental, not that we felt an iota of remorse.
As for frats in college, I was happy to drink their beer and dance on sticky basement floors, but never would’ve joined one. It was simply unthinkable, and I’ll note that this was before all the rape/cruel hazing/binge drinking violations appeared in the news. I’m sure much of that occurred, though I never heard of a student at my college found in a coma after he was forced to chug a bottle of Smirnoff’s with a chaser of $2 Wild Irish Rose wine. In 1977, I had a job at Johns Hopkins producing pamphlets, high school newspapers, early-zines, and layouts for fraternity yearbooks. Turned out most of the guys I bargained with were upstanding fellows, and paid their bills (under the counter, all cash) on time.
In 1990 I did buy a tuxedo at Paul Stuart in Manhattan, as there were a number of galas—weddings, unreasonably formal book launches, Upper East Side soirees—that I attended during that decade, and it’s still hanging in my closet, even though untouched in this century. It wasn’t cheap—and my wife had to knot the bowtie—a standard jet-black number that l thought looked silly, but in that (for some) gilded age if you saw “black tie” on an invitation there was no way to back out. Some stragglers did, and received the same volley of sotto voce insults that were slung at the high schoolers noted above.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Lester Maddox sworn in as Georgia’s governor; Albert DeSalvo sentenced to life in prison; the 25th Amendment is added to the Constitution; Muhammad Ali, in his prime, refused military service; Milwaukee is shut down for 10 days because of race riots; Joan Baez, vocalist and professional protester, is arrested; Hair opens on off-Broadway; John McCain is shot down over North Vietnam; Laura Dern is born and Claude Raines dies; Mike Nichols makes Dustin Hoffman a star; William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner and Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America are published; Edward Albee wins the Drama Pulitzer Prize; and Lulu’s “To Sir, With Love” is a smash hit.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023