Tag: Nick Hilton Princeton

 Gant didn’t invent the oxford button down, but they popularized it, the way Norman Hilton did for natural shoulder sport jackets. My father shared a showroom with Marty Gant at 200 Fifth Avenue in the early days of Ivy-League. They were pals. They had the same stores as customers and they traveled around selling together, played golf, and hung out. I remember boxes of Gant button-down oxford shirts arriving at the holidays. Yellow, pink, blue and white. I remember the label, even; with the big, red G. They had a little belt loop kind of a deal in the middle of the back my Mom used to hang them on hooks in my closet. That was what my brothers and I wore to church, with skinny little clip-on ties. 

Button-down collar oxford shirts started out as dress-up clothes and wound up being sportswear. A guy can wear a button-down oxford with jeans, khakis, linens, or fine dress trousers; even Carolina-style, with shorts. He can wear it untucked, with the sleeves rolled up, or spiff it — hard finish worsted slacks and a sport jacket, grey flannels, a blazer, even a tie.

People should try occasionally to be creative, to carry off things that are unusual and innovative and personally expressive. So if someone says Thou Shalt or Shalt Not Wear This or That they thwart the creative drive that can make someone able to dress really well. But I will say for the record that it is a mistake to wear a button-down collar shirt with a tie and a suit. Like wearing boat shoes with the suit; not much better than a pocket protector. Button-down, no tie with suit? 

Cognoscenti’s Note A Scottish textile company once named their four basic weaves after four institutions of higher learning; so once upon a time there was “Cambridge,” weave, and “Harvard” and even “Yale,” in addition to “Oxford.”  (Princeton apparently was left out.) There is also a basic style of shoes called “Oxfords.” Interesting, right? Perhaps the name itself leads to persistent popularity. I can’t think of anything we wear now referred to as a “Yale.”  In any case “Oxford” is a type of weave. It is a one-over-one construction, the most basic weave there is. Regular, traditional oxford is kind of heavy, and has a richly firm drape. Pinpoint oxford is the same construction, but done with much smaller yarns, so that the cloth is lighter and has more flexibility. Both should feel soft and comfortable; both should wear well. Regular, heavy oxford, though, looks like nothing else. The real thing. Pinpoint is more comfortable around your neck, especially with a tie. The colors, especially blue, are soft and versatile because the vertical or warp yarns alternate color-white-color, and so the overall look of a colored oxford shirt is softer than strictly solid cloth.