Men's Fashion Etiquette

The top garment of formal occasions, the Inverness Cape, is easily donned or doffed, being loose fitting and graceful in hang.

When to Wear Them

The White Lawn Cravat—Always upon occasions when the swallowtail is worn.

The High Silk Hat—Always with the double breasted frock coat and swallowtail. It is apropos also with the frock cut away coat.

Gloves—At all times en promenade, especially when walking. The glove is also to be informally worn on every clear, cool day in the year.

The Inverness Cape—At night over the dress suit. The top garment of formal occasions, it is easily donned or doffed, being loose fitting and graceful in hang.

The Full Dress Coat—From 6 p. m.—being the earliest dinner hour—just so long into the next day as the festivities continue. It is the impregnable and inexorable garment of fashionable times.

The Cane —Not during business hours nor with evening dress. In point of etiquette, the cane is essentially an adjunct of outdoor exercise, and can have no application with the more formal functions of social life. —Clothier and Furnisher, 1892

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Walking Stick Etiquette

Some walking sticks are dashed backward and forward like lethal bayonets! So never mind if he growls; you are acting in the interests of etiquette and sound citizenship.

Canes and Sound Citizenship

Walking sticks are "In" with a greater virulence than has prevailed since the year 1898, says the London Chronicle. The West End began it with silver-topped and gold-topped ebonies (same as used by the King), and the East has taken up the tale with cherry crooks that also have metal embellishments. In the Fleet Street-Strand Monkey Crawl of promenaders, nine out of every ten male promenaders had sticks, whereas a few years back the crowd was almost stickless. 

The sticks, it may be added, are a menace, so few people having studied the art of carrying them. They are carried at dangerous angles below the armpit; also they are dashed backward and forward like lethal bayonets. When you come upon a man carrying a stick that projects from his armpit upward behind him, turn it down. Never mind if he growls; you are acting in the interests of etiquette and sound citizenship. — 1914

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia