Why do collars exist
The original purpose of collars was for cooler weather. To tie a necktie around it to insulate your body from the cold air. That combined with a suit jacket kept you warm.
This became the standard of mens wear in northern cities like London and Manhattan.
But at some point the southern U.S. and southwest U.S. developed. Latin America, Africa, middle-east, etc. are developing. It's just odd to expect something northern-specific to be the standard everywhere.
But nowadays, collars are a vestige. People wear it just because it associated with formality, rather than any actual purpose.
8 Replies
Fashion isn’t utilitarian
The last time it was, was probably when it was first invented
And I bet that changed pretty quick
i agree. its just weird to have some things be called needless frills and others a sign that youre formal or sophisticated, when both are equally arbitrary
Yeah there’s a lot of cultural weight that doesn’t get re-examined for really long periods
What was the formal fashion in the south pre reconstruction era? Wasn’t it just imported from the Europe?
Collars were also used to protect your neck from the sun
I don't think they're popular because of any sense of formality or sophistication. Tons of informal shirts have collars. Collars just look good. Humans have necks, and collars change up the silhouette to better integrate the neck into the rest of the outfit so it's not just a featureless cylinder of skin floating between the forms of the head and torso. And longneck bastards like me look better with collars to alter proportions. And you can do so much with size/shape of collars to accentuate different facial shapes or just for fun and style. And like Zidgel said, they keep the sun off your neck.
If you were a scoop of ice cream would you want to be served on a weird cylinder made of more ice cream or a lovely waffle cone?
This reminds me I was thinking what eastern dress would had been like since as I understand it dress shirts and suits are a western thing, though I admittedly haven't actually looked into this much
You ever pop your collar while you’re on the tennis court of your local country club