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May 23, 2012 |
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An upturned collar is just what it sounds like - an otherwise flat, protruding collar (clothing)|collar of either a shirt, jacket, or coat (clothing)|coat that has been turned upward. In recent years, some have perceived this as a "fashion signal." Before the early twentieth century, most shirt collars were upturned in some manner. Men and women alike wore tall, stiff collars, not unlike a taller version of a clerical collar, made either of starched linen, cotton, or lace. In the late nineteenth century, men's collars were often detached collar|detachable from their shirts, connected only by two removable collar studs (one in front and one in back). Detachable collars were very stiff, and either stood straight up (as in a Hamilton collar) or were pressed over at an ironed-in, starched crease (as in a Fremont collar). After World War II, mass-production gradually phased out detachable collars from ordinary dress shirts. One can still occasionally find detachable collar formal shirts, designed to be worn with a tuxedo or evening dress. Brooks Brothers sells such a shirt at select locations. Lapels on jackets and coats, which resemble (and derive from) a longer collar, were and are also occasionally upturned. The frock coat of the eighteenth and nineteenth century often had a solid lapel that was always upturned. Gradually, toward the mid-to-late nineteenth century, however, lapels became folded down and "pieced out," in the peak, notched, or shawl lapel that one sees to this day. Today, however, a jacket lapel's ability to be upturned helps to provide an extra modicum of warmth when weather is cold or windy. With the advent of the tennis shirt, however, the upturned collar took on a whole new purpose. In 1929, Rene Lacoste, the French 7-time Grand Slam tennis champion, decided that the stiff dress shirts and ties usually worn by tennis players was too cumbersome and uncomfortable for the tennis court. Instead, he designed a loosely-knit pique cotton shirt with an un-starched, flat protruding collar and a longer shirt-tail in back than in front. This came to be known as the tennis shirt. Lacoste's design called for a thick pique collar that one would wear upturned in order to block the sun from one's neck. Thus, the tennis shirt's upturned collar was originally used for ease and comfort on the tennis court, aiding the player by helping to prevent sunburn and hyperthermia. Gradually, as tennis shirts became more popular and more widely-produced, their use transcended from the tennis court to everyday life. Wearers were less apt to turn up their collar to block the sun if not wearing the shirt during sport or outdoor activity. Thus, people began to wear a tennis shirt without the collar upturned, turning them upward only when involved in sport, or not at all. The professional golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is known for this practice; as the golf shirt is a looser-fitting descendant of Rene Lacoste's tennis shirt, off the course Zoeller wears his golf shirt's collar turned down, but one often observes him with an upturned collar while he is playing. In 1980, Lisa Birnbach published The Official Preppy Handbook, in which she extolled the "virtues of the upturned collar." According to Ms. Birnbach, rather than being a sports innovation, the upturned collar on a tennis shirt was simply a signal that the wearer is a "preppy". Despite this obviously tongue-in-cheek characterization, Ms. Birnbach did correctly identify that one was more likely to view an upturned collar on the beaches of Nantucket than one would in middle America. The book was a bestselling sensation. As a result, many people outside of the "preppy" enclaves of New England began emulating the style espoused and categorized by Ms. Birnbach's book. As such, ordinary people in middle America began to wear the collars of their tennis shirts upturned, but not because of the collar's utility purpose of blocking the sun. Popularly and in retrospect, many viewed this as a fashion characteristic of the 1980s. Gradually, however, among those who did not do so for sport or out of lifelong habit, this style decreased in prevalence, and by 2000, one was hard-pressed to find middle class or nouveau riche|nouveau Americans wearing the collars of their tennis shirts upturned. In very recent years, however, in a recurring attempt to emulate what middle class hypermaterialism perceives as "looking rich," people otherwise disinclined from upturning the collars of their tennis shirts have begun to do so again, for the same reasons as in the 1980s. Popular music and the entertainment media have been infused with celebrities perceived as "cool" by young people wearing the collars of their shirts and jackets upturned. Popular culture even created a buzzword to replace the word "upturned," instead calling a tennis shirt's collar upward a "popped" collar, with the act of turning up the collar suddenly dubbed "popping" the collar. Today, even popular mass-produced clothiers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Polo Ralph Lauren court the upturned collar as a fashion for the masses.
Category:fashion This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Upturned collar".
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