Fashion 88 : Change in Formalities

It was double jeopardy for the black-tie tradition when Stephen Spielberg and Larry Hagman both showed up wearing cowboy boots under their tuxedos at a recent formal party. It’s getting so the rarest thing to see is a man who wears his tux the old-fashioned way.

Hagman prides himself on his flamboyant style, and he went so far as to sling a saddlebag over the shoulder of his dinner jacket that night. Other men are putting brooches where there used to be bow ties or treating thrift-shop boleros like formal evening jackets. And so many men are wearing high-top sneakers where once only dress shoes dared to tread that the look is commonplace.

Edward Maeder replaced his black tie with a black crystal brooch by jeweler Faith Porter. Maeder can get away with it more easily than some men. He is curator of costumes for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and people expect “artsy types” to dress their own way. But at a recent fashion show and formal dinner party, a businessman wore a huge silver abstraction on his collar, the way Maeder wears his brooch.

In at least some men’s wardrobes, white shirts with mandarin collars seem to be interchangeable with wing collars. Men wear the mandarin with no tie at all.

And what might best be described as a shirt substitute appeared at a recent formal art exhibit opening. A man in a color-splattered top explained that it was his Jackson Pollock, because it remotely resembled one of the artist’s famed abstract paintings.

There are hats being worn all night, instead of being checked-in at the door. Bowlers and tall silks turn up occasionally. And for a richer effect, a red velvet fez. One cool night this winter, Henry Geldzahler, the art curator who helped build the modern art department at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, wore a tasseled fez for a black-tie reception that was set on a terrace.

The young artist, Ian Falconer, did not wear a hat to the preview party for David Hockney’s painting exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. But Falconer, who Hockney describes as his protege, still made his mark with a gold brocade shawl-collar jacket from Sarah Daubney, who designs costumes for the singer Prince. And, Falconer’s shocking-green socks made his classic black patent-leather pumps look daring.

Even when a traditional dresser comes along, it’s worth taking a closer look if you want to be certain. In the case of Michael McCarty, who owns the stylish Santa Monica restaurant, Michael’s, a Ralph Lauren tux couldn’t convince anybody that the culinary artist is a fashion purist. Not if they noticed his ocelot boots, toes pointed as sharp as pins.

Evan Dr. Irwin Grossman is a surprise. Frogs squat at every buttonhole on his classic white shirt. Green, enameled frogs with ruby eyes, from Harry Winston jewelers. They are his answer to ordinary tuxedo studs.