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Men's Dress Shirt Collar Overview - Video Guide - Point - Spread - Pin - Tab - Button
Down Collars
Hi. Iím Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style. And today I'm going to be
giving you a dress shirt collar overview.
Okay. So why is this important? Why do you need to know anything about dress shirt collars?
Well if you think about it, the dress shirt sits right next to your face and in many ways
it frames the face. Kind of like how a picture frame frames a picture. And if youíve ever
seen that bad picture frame, it just really did track from the picture and it takes away
from it. Thatís why museums, they spend so much time making sure that this is set up
correctly.
And so why would you put something next to your face which makes it look wider, makes
it look thinner? You know, it changes the look. Actually me wearing a white shirt collar
and white shirt in general, this affects how my face is perceived. And it draws actually,
very ñ itís a stark contrast between my skin color and this jacket color, and it draws
attention to this area.
So thatís just, you know, I pay attention on those things. And I want to teach you how
to pay attention to this. So today weíre going to talk specifically about the styles,
not about the colors. And I talk about other things like this throughout my websites. So
go ahead and go back to Real Men Real Style and see what you can find there. Weíre trying
to make it pretty well-organized for you.
But letís talk about shirt collar styles, specifically what are they? So weíve got
turndown collars, and youíve winged collars. Those are the two main classes of shirts.
Weíre not going to spend any time really talking about winged collars because those
are mostly for black tie and white tie. And youíve rarely ever see those in the United
States and really throughout the world nowadays.
What you see everywhere are turndown collars. And there are varieties of turndown collars.
Mostly, theyíre affected by the angle in which ñ if I were to button this, or I would
button my shirt right here, it would be the angle in which the points go out.
And first letís talk about point collars. So what are point collars? Theyíre the most
common shirt collar on the planet. Theyíre ñ if you walk into any department store,
box store, pretty much youíre looking at point collars. And these are collars who the
points at the end are, I would say, 60 degrees or less, probably around, maybe even 70 degrees
or less, it depends on where youíre at. Over in England, weíre going to see a few more
spread. There are going to be a little bit more spread out than in the United States.
But point collars, and the reason theyíre so common is because theyíre very flexible.
They go with almost any type. But the big thing about the point collar is itís going
to elongate the face. And for many men, this is actually the most complementary collar.
Because they want something that, if they got a round face, or something thatís slightly
square, they want it to draw out their face a bit.
Now, thatís not saying that other types of collars arenít great for you. But thatís
really why youíre going to see mostly point collars out there. In addition, itís just
safe. Itís going to work with many types. But you can play with those points. Not necessarily
youíre going to have to look for specialty collars and actually ask for spread collars
if you want to get the angles to go out.
And that takes us to our next collar type which is, whenever the collar point starts
to go out beyond 90 degrees or 90 degrees or more, thatís a spread collar. And theyíre
a lot less common. And the reason being is that they sort of spread out the face which
isnít good if youíve got a round face or square face. But if you have a really long
narrow face, you got a rectangle-shaped face or just something that you really want to
draw out those features, thatís when you want to go for a spread collar.
In addition, I like what I call the medium spread. And this is one that weíve designed.
Itís about 70 ñ around 75 degrees. So itís a little bit, you know, itís not a full spread
in terms of 90 to 100 degrees. Itís a medium spread. And I like it because whenever I do
not wear a neck tie, the point stay out of the way. So a lot of point collars, whenever
you wear, theyíre maybe even worn with a neck tie. And so when you donít wear them
with a neck tie, you end up getting ñ these collar points end up getting in the way.
So weíve talked about point collars, weíve talked about spread collars. And understand
that each of those types, you can have narrow-point collars. And this is where the angle starts
to come in. I mean Iíve seen ñ have you ever seen the movie Goodfellas? Joe Pesci
ñ so Iíll just put Joe his name, heís got that really, really narrow ñ Iíve actually
made collars like this before. But Iíve had some people say theyíre monstrosities, maybe
for this article Iíll go ahead and put one of those out there.
But the point Iím making is that you can have a lot of fun with collars. Now as a custom
clothier, I can do this on any of the collars. If youíre going to be looking for something
off the rack, you need to just look in and ask about it. Hopefully,
Öthe manufacturer will specify as to what type of collar is.
You also seen sometimes called ñ I donít know, people will ñ certain manufacturers
will make up the names for them. And that, Iím not a big fan of that because Iíll set
and takes out ñ it makes it unique yes to that company but all of the sudden, Iím trying
to figure out, ìOkay. What is that layer?î Or I donít know, whatever they call it.
Now, button-down collars. These are actually probably more common than spread collars.
And they were developed by ñ or they become famous with Brooks brothers. I believe they
came off as rugby shirts and they used to button their collars down so that they would
basically stay out of the way and wouldnít pop up. And Brooks brothers took this to a
whole another level. They introduced a dress shirt with a button-down soft collar.
And this is something that ñ I mean there are stories of people coming over from England,
France and just going specifically to Brooks brothers and just tucking up because they
love, theyíre making this collar and the way it was shaped. Now, you can buy them all
over the world. As a custom clothier, we make them as well.
But youíre going to find that button-down collars are ñ because of the button, they
are more casual. Theyíre nice because theyíre lower maintenance. You donít always have
to ñ you still want to unbutton it and iron them and press out the point, but you donít
have to. Itís understood that itís a little bit softer of a collar.
You can wear a tie with button-down. Some men say that you shouldnít. I said that you
can. You know, just unbutton it, tie the tie, and then button it. It looks fine. Or you
can do I guess ñ you know, some men thinks itís a little style feature to leave one
of them unbuttoned or leave both of them. I donít know. I donít really own many button-like
shirts. Iím ñ like I said, a bigger fan of the medium spread point and I used collar
stays.
So weíve talked about the point, the spread, the button-down. By the way, the button-down
is a variation of the point collar. So youíre going to seen on button-downs that they are
usually 75 to 70 degrees or more narrow. Probably I think we make ours around 60 to 55 degrees.
The pin collar. Now the pin collar, the tab collar, the club collar. These are what I
would consider to be eccentric collars. I sell a lot of shirts. And probably 1% of the
shirt I sell are these eccentric groups. And these are ones, when you see them, thereís
something unique about it. I mean you rarely ever see them out in the wild. So letís talk
about each of them.
The pin collar. The c-collar that actually has a hole in the collar and is made for a
pin to be inserted. Now there are none true, there were men who actually, will use a big
ñ it looks like a big safety pin and they will run them to a regular collar and you
know, kind of create a pin collar. But a true pin collar actually has holes and itís designed
for a pin that will go through and screw in usually on the sides to hold it there and
fasten it.
An interesting thing about this is from the side, it will actually push out a tie and
it creates a very unique look. You have to have cojones to wear this. I think it would
be in a finance industry or I donít know, be the head of Goldman Sachs or something.
So letís talk about the tab collar. The tab collar is one that rides a bit higher up on
the neck. Sometimes it has two buttons. And itís a bit stuffy over the collar. So itís
going to have a shorter collar ñ the length right here, of this collar point, right here
and the distance right there is going to be shorter. And so a tab collar is made to be
worn. And it just looks like a bit stuffier of a collar. Itís going to fit ñ itís not
going to have as long of points going down. And thatís a tab collar. Itís always worn
with a tie. Itís just a more formal kind of a stuffy-looking collar in my opinion but
some men like it.
All right. The club collar. The club collar is going to have rounded edges. And this I
think has bit of origins -- and English school boys used to wear collars like this. And you
will see a number of gentlemen who will try to pull this off. And I think it looks pretty
good. It definitely, when you see it, it is an acquired taste. I mean because you donít
have the points here which you have again is a rounded edge, and so naturally itís
going to be a bit shorter. And the angle, itís usually more of towards the point. So
,75 to 60 degrees.
All right. so weíve talked about point collars, weíve talked about spread collars, weíve
talked about button-down collars, weíve talked about pin, tab, and club collars. Did I forget
anything? Probably hidden button-down. I donít really get into that. But thatís a variation
of the button-down where you canít see the button, itís underneath. I make those for
a number of my clients as well.
And you know, when it comes down to collars and what you can do, itís really up to your
imagination. Iím a big fan though of keeping it simple, keeping it classic and realizing
that because itís in such close proximity to your face, I realize that you donít want
it to be something that draws all the attention. Itís great if it drawsÖ
Ö.attention to your face because thatís where you want peopleís eyes.
But when your collar starts to draw attention away, thatís when I think it almost defeats
the purpose of what itís there for.
All right. Antonio Centeno. Thank you for your time and check out the website. Bye-bye.