While we're all rejoicing at the fact that Barack Obama is our new president, we did have some reservations about the tuxedo he wore to the inauguration ball (above). Simply put, the combination of a notched-lapel dinner jacket (by Hart Schaffner Marx) and a big, shiny white bow tie was not quite the thing for a commander-in-chief. We asked our old friend Alan Flusser, the world's leading authority on men's style who's been interviewed several times about Obama's dress sense, for his thoughts on the matter. Flusser is a renowned designer and author of several seminal works on men's style including Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion You can check out his video interview with Charlie Rose here.In Dressing the Man, Flusser writes, "The whole idea of a formal suit [i.e. tuxedo] is to distinguish itself from the notch-lapel business suit, not replicate it." Flusser declares that a dinner jacket with notched lapels is nothing short of a "sartorial oxymoron, convoluting both the form's aesthetic logic and its promise of timeless elegance." A proper dinner jacket should have peaked lapels, or, for slightly less formal occasions, a shawl collar. As for the white bow tie, that should only ever be worn with tails - hence the classic "white tie and tails" - and should never be satin. More here.
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