The History of the Dinner Jacket and Tuxedo

In the mid-nineteenth century, a gentleman in full evening dress wore a tailcoat to dinner. After the meal, men often withdrew to a separate room to smoke, and many changed into a loose, comfortable jacket for the purpose. These smoking jackets were usually made of velvet or another soft cloth, frequently with quilted or contrasting lapels and decorative frog fastenings, and they were understood to protect the evening clothes from the smell of tobacco.

The smoking jacket mattered because it established an idea: that an evening jacket could be short, without tails, and still belong to the evening. That idea is why the dinner jacket is still called a smoking, or a variant of the word, in many European languages.

The step from smoking jacket to dinner jacket is most often linked to the Savile Row tailor Henry Poole and Co. and to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. According to the version usually given, around 1865 Poole made the prince a short jacket in dark cloth for informal dinners at Sandringham, his country house, as a more comfortable alternative to the tailcoat.

The firm's records are the main source for this story, and the date is commonly cited rather than precisely settled. What is clear is the direction of travel. By the 1880s a short black evening jacket, worn with the same trousers and shirt as evening dress, was accepted for private dinners and informal occasions in Britain, while the tailcoat remained correct for balls, formal dinners and public events.

The American name has its own origin story. Tuxedo Park was a private residential club community founded in the mid-1880s in New York State. According to a commonly told story, an American visitor to Sandringham, often named as James Brown Potter, had a short evening jacket made by Henry Poole and brought the style home, where it was taken up by members of the Tuxedo Club. Another version credits a member called Griswold Lorillard with appearing in a tailless jacket at a club ball around 1886.

Neither story can be confirmed in every detail, and they may describe the same fashion arriving through more than one person. What is reasonably certain is that the short evening jacket became associated with Tuxedo Park in the late 1880s, and that the name tuxedo stuck in the United States while Britain kept the term dinner jacket.

Over the twentieth century the dinner jacket replaced the tailcoat for most evening occasions, and its accompanying rules settled into what is now called black tie. The details vary a little between countries and between strict and relaxed interpretations, but the classic version is consistent.

• Jacket: black or midnight blue, with lapels faced in silk, either satin or grosgrain.
• Lapels: a shawl collar or a peak lapel are the traditional choices; notch lapels are common today but are often considered less formal.
• Buttons: covered in the same silk as the facings, or plain black.
• Trousers: of the same cloth, with a single row of braid down the outer leg, no belt loops and no turn-ups.
• Waist covering: a low-cut evening waistcoat or a cummerbund, so that no shirt shows between the jacket button and the trousers.
• Shirt: white, with a pleated or piqué front and a turn-down collar; studs and cufflinks.
• Tie: a black bow tie, ideally matching the lapel facings, tied by hand.

The classic dinner jacket is single-breasted with one button, a cut that keeps the front clean and shows the shirt. Double-breasted dinner jackets became fashionable in the 1930s and have returned periodically since. Because a double-breasted jacket is meant to stay buttoned and covers the waist, it is usually worn without a waistcoat or cummerbund.

Midnight blue cloth is also associated with the interwar years and is often linked to the Duke of Windsor, who was an influential dresser in that period. The usual explanation for its popularity is that a very dark blue can look deeper and richer than black under artificial light, while black can take on a greenish cast. Whether or not that effect is as strong as is sometimes claimed, midnight blue has remained an accepted alternative to black.

In warm climates, an ivory or white dinner jacket worn with black trousers became an accepted summer and tropical variant, often with a shawl collar and without silk facings.

Today's black tie is more flexible than it was. Velvet dinner jackets, a direct descendant of the smoking jacket, are worn at home and at less strict events, often in burgundy, bottle green or navy. Some men wear a black-tie outfit with a cummerbund but no waistcoat, or with a slim waistcoat in the same cloth. Ready-to-wear tuxedos have also become slimmer and shorter, following the cut of everyday suits.

Behind the variations, the essentials remain: a dark jacket with silk-faced lapels, matching trousers with braid, a covered waist and a black bow tie. A dinner jacket that respects these points will be correct at almost any event marked black tie.

A dinner jacket has fewer components than a tailcoat, but it is less forgiving than an everyday jacket. The silk facings show every ripple in the lapel, the single button has to sit exactly at the waist, and the clean front of the classic cut leaves nowhere for a poor fit to hide. Drafting the pattern from your own measurements removes the guesswork about where the waist and the button should be.

Minerva Patterns includes the 6078 Men's Tuxedo (Dinner Jacket) and the 6080 Men's Single-Breasted Tuxedo Jacket, and for the waist the 6077 Men's Backless Tuxedo Waistcoat. Each is drafted to the measurements you enter and delivered as PDF, projector file, PLT or DXF AAMA.

When you cut the lapel facings, handle the silk as little as possible, interface carefully and press with a cloth. A toile in plain cotton or wool will tell you whether the front and the button position are right before you commit the evening cloth.