The origin of the button-down collar shirt is always recounted as having its beginnings in 1896 when the grandson of founder Henry Sands Brooks, John E. Brooks, saw polo players in England wearing shirts that had buttons on the collars to keep them in place. This shirt, with its aptly named "Polo Collar," is probably Brooks Brothers most enduring and famous contribution to the classic American style. Throughout its history, Brooks Brothers introduced a number of shirting innovations such as Seersucker, Madras, Brookscloth, and Brooksweave, but it was the actual garment of the shirt itself that simply changed the way men wore shirts. Not only has the button-down collar shirt been copied and modified by more times by more companies than nearly any other piece of clothing, it revolutionized shirts, making them more casual, thus leading the way to a more casual American style of dress.
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The New Yorker (9/24/1949). Note that the label includes the name "New York." This advertisement calls attention to the "soft generous roll" of the Brooks Brothers button-down collar. The advertisement is also helpful in understanding the shift from a pullover style to a "coat style" shirt. The "coat style" of shirt is, of course, the style that we are all familiar with today. The pullover style of shirt always seems to undergo revivals, but it is nearly always for the short-sleeved version. I have a Brooks Brothers burgundy candy stripe short-sleeve pullover in the attic, though I wish it were an old long-sleeved one instead.
The New Yorker (11/15/1955). In 1955, the shirt label now read "Makers" rather than "New York," and the pullover style was no longer advertised (though it shows up again in 1962 below). The newly developed Brookscloth and Brooksweave blends were also prominently featured. This advertisement mentions "the full roll and 'set' of the collar," for which Brooks Brothers button-downs had become famous. It is this "full roll and 'set' of the collar" that I would like to look more closely at below.
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The 1979 Christmas catalog offered the oxford cloth button-down in white, blue, peach ecru, pink, yellow, and stone, in addition to yellow and blue candy stripes. These shirts had 6 button fronts and unlined collars with that distinctively casual collar roll.
Fall & Winter 1980 also featured the same color palette. Note the bend on the left side of that collar in the illustration. This was part of that casual informality that this collar came to be known for. I think that it's significant that Brooks Brothers actually began to illustrate this kind of collar roll in its catalogs, rather than a simple and uniform "bell" like collar roll. It was the irregularity of the unlined collar roll, rather than a cookie-cutter regularity, that was part of its success in conveying a sense of casual formality.
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Spring 1982. The collar roll here has that classic bell shaped roll.
Fall & Winter 1988. The images here and below from this catalog really capture the essence of the Brooks Brothers collar roll in all of its unruly and asymmetrical glory. Because the collar was unlined, there was little to keep it from curving or collapsing depending upon the wearer's own physical posture and they manner in which the necktie was worn.
Fall & Winter 1988. Brooks Feathertweed. Fall & Winter 1988. Glen check suit.
Fall & Winter 1988. This mantra was true.
Fall & Winter 1988. This sort of lopsided roll is classic Brooks Brothers. It's subtle, but both sides of the collar aren't doing the same thing. There seemed to be great variation in collar rolls and this is part of what I like about them.Of course, the open collar button-down needs to be mentioned in this context. Perhaps the most famous image that comes to mind is that of Cary Grant in the Hitchcock film, North by Northwest, wearing a white oxford cloth open collar button-down, grey trousers and tassel loafers. Though I can't prove it, I would be very surprised if the shirt in the image above was not a Brooks Brothers button-down. The distance between the collar button and the second button is a bit longer than that of today, but this was normal for the 5 or 6 button front shirt. However, it's the unmistakable roll of the open collar that suggests that it is really a Brooks Brothers shirt.
The shirt above is a sibling to the shirt that Cary Grant is wearing in the previous image. It has a 6 button front, an unlined collar and that same open collar roll.
The same can be said of this yellow bold stripe oxford cloth shirt from the late 1950s-early 1960s: It has that same open collar roll.
It also has very deep shirttails that are a hallmark of this well-made shirt.
This pink bold stripe oxford cloth shirt from the same period also has that unmistakable open collar roll that has become such an easily recognizable part of the American style.
The pink bold stripe and the white Brookscloth shirts with ties (below).Yankee Magazine, October, 1979. The bell shaped collar roll (above and below) is perhaps the button-collar that is most well-known and most easily achieved by nearly every shirt maker.
However, look closely at Dean Acheson's collar (above) in this photo taken in June 1952 with General Eisenhower. Acheson's collar displays an absolutely unruly, bent and collapsed sort of perfection. This is something altogether different than the bell shaped roll. The illustrations in the 1988 Fall & Winter catalog above captured the spirit of this sort of asymmetrical collar roll.I've included some photos below from the past couple of weeks. Many of my favorite Brooks Brothers shirts have a bit of this sort of unruliness about them. For me the image above of Dean Acheson displays the ideal collar roll. It is unbalanced, unruly and perfectly imperfect. It is everthing that a button-down collar should be. (Image: voxsartoria)
Earlier this past week: A wonderfully bent out of shape Brooks Brothers Brooksweave button-down collar.
Looking at these images, it occurs to me, however, that somewhere along the way the spirit of what made the button-down collar truly "Brooksy" has been lost. Today's button-downs (and I am casting the net beyond only Brooks Brothers here), though often very well-made shirts, fail to achieve this sort of asymmetrical perfection because the collars have been rendered lifeless through overly heavy lining. Moreover, the non-iron shirts of today have basically forfeited this spirit because though they never wrinkle, they also never actually look lived in. To say it another way, one might say that contemporary shirts of today are almost too well-made. A bit of rumpling and wrinkling was an important aspect of the American style's casual elegance because it looked alive, imparting a bit of informality, playfulness even, in an often serious, uncertain and difficult world. It's this playfully casual elegance that was the secret to Brooks Brothers' button-collar shirts. It is an open secret that is still invites imitation and renewal by a new generation willing to look bit more closely at what makes traditions truly alive and genuine.
(Images: Google LIFE archive, and others as indicated above).
