Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette! In today's video, I'm going to give you a
behind-the-scenes look at how I prepared for a recent concert by giving you a
step-by-step overview of how I put together my black tie ensemble. As
regular viewers of our channel will probably be aware when I'm not in the
office preparing content for the Gentleman's Gazette, in my free time, I
also work as a jazz vocalist around Minnesota. At the time of recording this
video, I'm still, what you would probably call, an emerging artist, in that I'm
still making connections and getting my name out there but recently, I did take
what you would probably consider to be a fairly major step and organized my own
concert completely from scratch. My collaborator Maestro Andrew Casey and I
put together an ensemble of twenty-four professional musicians to play an
hour-long concert of songs from the Great American Songbook or Jazz
Standards from the early to mid 20th century. As you can probably imagine,
there was quite a lot of preparation to do including finding a space, selecting
the songs we wanted to perform, contacting the musicians, figuring out
ticketing and so on. Not to mention that Maestro Casey did all of the
arrangements of the songs we chose on his own but what we'll focus on in
today's video, in line with our bread and butter here at the Gentleman's Gazette,
is specifically how I put together the outfit I decided to wear for the concert.
So without any further ado, let's jump right into the process. First, of course,
was the overall question of deciding what to wear. Because Jazz was one of the
dominant musical forms of the early and mid 20th century, it naturally has an
association with the formal dress codes that became popular during that time,
namely, the tuxedo. And being a student of history myself, getting all of the
details of Black Tie correct is something that I find joy in doing.
In fact, I came to classic menswear largely through Black Tie to begin with.
Of course, tuxedos are still worn today but there's a rich history with how they
developed throughout the 20th century. If you'd like to learn more about tuxedos
or about white tie, you can check out our comprehensive resource the black tie
guide here. I have a few different black tie ensembles in my possession such as
the vintage midnight blue double-breasted model that's been seen
on the channel before, as well as an ivory dinner jacket for warm weather
black tie. For this concert though, I decided to go with perhaps the most
classic and standard orientation, a single breasted one-button peak lapel
tuxedo jacket in black with matching black trousers, a black cummerbund,
bow tie, and a white pleated tuxedo shirt. There were other elements to the outfit
as well, of course, but we'll get to all of the specifics in
a moment. So with my ensemble selected, it was time to get it ready to wear. First, I
took the jacket and trousers and thoroughly brushed them off with a
garment brush to get rid of any lint, hair, dust, or other debris. After afixing
some black grosgrain silk suspenders that feature gold adjusters to my
trousers, I put them on over my underthings which included some black
silk over the calf socks from Fort Belvedere. I've actually gotten into the
habit of wearing two pairs of socks whenever I'm wearing my black tie
ensembles because my vintage opera pumps from Allen Edmonds are just a hair big
on my feet. Thus, the first pair of socks I usually
put on is a standard pair of cotton dress socks on top of which I'll put
these silk socks that are proper for black tie. By the way, you can find our
over the calf black silk socks for black tie and white tie in the Fort Belvedere
shop here. Before I put on any of my other garments, I figured that it was an
appropriate time to finish my grooming routine.
I had already showered and shaved before I put on my underthings
but now was a good time for me to do my hair, as well as put on a
little bit of concealer to hide any blemishes. After all, everything stands
out under stage lighting. As you can learn in my recent FAQ video here, I
typically use a product on my hair called Groom and Clean, it provides a bit
of a shiny finish and an early 20th century look that goes with my aesthetic
especially with the tuxedo. This product is best applied to damp hair so I had to
get my hair wet first and to make sure that nothing would come out of place
during the concert, I did use a little bit of hairspray for extra hold. On that
note, if you'd like to learn what types of hair products are best for you, you
can check out our guide to hair products here. With grooming done, the next task
was to iron my tuxedo shirt so that it looked presentable. If you'd like to
learn how I did that, you can find our series on properly ironing multiple
kinds of garments here. After the shirt was ironed, of course, it was time for me
to insert its hardware. This time around, I chose a set that I've had for quite a
while which features onyx insets in gold-plated metal. Also, the collar of the
tuxedo shirt does take collar stays. Normally, I would use brass ones because
they're more durable but just on the off chance that they could be seen under the
plain white fabric, I decided to go with white plastic stays instead. By the way,
you can find our complete guide to collar stays as well as shirt stays here.
After I put on my shirt, I turned next to my neck wear and my waist covering. I
have several different black tie neck wear options in my collection but this
time, I turn to one of my most recent acquisitions, that being a single-ended
grosgrain silk bowtie from Fort Belvedere. Having only one bow shape to
the tie means that the finished knot can be small and snug and lay basically
flat against the collar which I appreciate. You can find our single-ended
bowtie models as well as more standard models in the shop here. Meanwhile, my
black cummerbund was just in plain satin silk. I'll probably pick
up a grosgrain cummerbund from Fort Belvedere soon just so that I can have a
tie and a cummerbund that match in grosgrain. Before putting on my tuxedo
jacket, it needed some accessories of its own as
well. The first of these was a white linen pocket square which I folded in a
crown design for just a little bit of character. By the way, if you'd like to
learn a number of different pocket square folds you can check out our video
on that subject here. The second accessory I chose to stand out just a
little bit from some of the other musicians on the stage was a red
carnation boutonniere. Normally, I would want to use one of our standard models
from the Fort Belvedere shop but I ran into a little bit of a problem this time
around. My jacket doesn't have any kind of buttonhole so I had to get a bit
creative with my boutonniere. First, I found an old lapel pin in my jewelry box
and using a bit of hot glue, I was able to afix to that lapel pin a prototype
boutonniere design that Raphael had given to me. It had been sitting around
the studio for quite a while, this prototype design didn't have a stem on
its backside but rather just had a button. Therefore, the glue could easily
make a point of contact between the flat lapel pin and the button on the reverse
of the boutonniere so mission accomplished! I now had a boutonniere
that I could simply pin through my jacket's lapel and it would still look
just as good. If I were wearing a jacket whose lapel did have a standard
buttonhole though, I would go with one of our current range of boutonnieres which
you can find in the Fort Belvedere shop here. They all look just like real
flowers but because they're made of silk, they'll last much longer. So with my
jacket on, the only thing left to do was cap myself off at the top and the bottom.
I started at the bottom with my opera pumps. As viewers were quick to point out
in our last video series where I wore them, the edges of my vintage pumps were
looking a bit old and showing their age. As such, I used a bit of black edge and heel
dressing to get them looking like new and then used a brush to get the uppers
of the shoes also free of any scuffs, my shoes were good to go. So the last
remaining piece of my ensemble was a hat. I've been an almost religious hat wearer
for years now although I do always observe proper hat etiquette, which you
can learn more about in this video here. Even if my hat was only going to be worn
on my way to and from the concert hall, I still would feel incomplete if I didn't
have one with me. Because this concert took place in August, I chose a summer
hat, my straw boater. The boater has a long history of being associated with Black
Tie so it was a natural fit and with that, my outfit was complete. All that was
left to do was to rehearse at the concert hall, take a brief break, and then
start the show. I'm happy to report that things went very well with the concert.
We're still hard at work getting finished footage of the concert ready
for our Gentleman's Gazette viewers to see but this should be a bit of a taste
for you. So did you enjoy this look at my Black Tie process? If you'd like to see
more videos like this in the future just let us know in the comments below. We've
already gone over most of the pieces in my wardrobe today but here are a few
additional notes in case you're curious. As I said, my jacket is single breasted,
it has peaked grosgrain lapels and a single button closure which is most
proper for a single breasted tuxedo. It also has no vents in the back and in
addition to being able to take suspenders, my trousers have double
pleats which is a little bit more traditional and falls in line with that
1930s aesthetic that I'm going for. I think the ensemble turned out well as
did the concert so hopefully in the future, you'll be able to see more of my
endeavors as a jazz vocalist here at the Gentleman's Gazette!