I have worn 'white tie and tails' a number of times. It simply makes you feel amazing. It makes you want to dance like Fred Astaire while sipping champagne and negotiating a treaty between warring Balkan countries.
So when I saw Trump - a man supposedly with money and his own clothing line - wearing his formal wear at Buckingham Palace, I felt the need to deconstruct everything wrong with it. And there is a lot, so buckle up...
First, the vest. Oh my God, the vest. When wearing tails the vest should not hang down below the jacket. At most, there should only be a sliver of white showing below the jacket, and some consider even this heresy. Here, Trump's vest has a good four inches of real estate below the equator. The vest is too long and the jacket is too short.
Next, the shirt is all wrong. Trump is wearing a turn-down, plain shirt collar instead of a stand up wing collar. Not only that, the shirt has pleats in the front like a tux (not tails) shirt. A shirt for white tie should be plain front, either a piqué or a plain starched front.
Then there's the tie. Every man should know (or should know someone who knows) how to tie a bow tie. This little white tie is clearly pre-tied (one up from a clip on).
Last, Trump's jacket sleeves are far too long. You should see about a half inch of shirt cuff, but these sleeves come down to his knuckles. (Insert tiny hands joke here.) You are not supposed to wear a wristwatch with white tie either, but it is impossible to tell if there is one under there.
Still, the problems with Donald Trump's white tie and tails pale in comparison to those of his sons. Eric and Don Jr. seem to have dressed themselves as extras in The Wild, Wild West...
Both boys are wearing jackets with square cut fronts and backs instead of actual "tails". I've never seen this cut of jacket before - anywhere. I can only imagine they were found somewhere in the back of a prom rental shop. Don Jr.'s is in bad need of a pressing and Eric's has some weird front closure that covers the vest. A closer look shows Eric and Don Jr. are wearing the same jacket (2 for 1 sale?) and the jacket is meant to be buttoned. A button and buttonhole can be seen on Don Jr.'s jacket below. Eric has his actually buttoned in the above photo, covering the vest except for two weird little points showing. A tail coat is never meant to be buttoned. It is meant to hang open. I expect the powder blue stretch limo is just out of shot.
The only one wearing proper white tie and tails is (shudder) Jared, showing the right amount of cuff, a sliver of vest, and correct shirt and tie. The rest look like the Clampetts, which is amazing considering the resources and advice available to the Trumps, or even a quick internet search.
If you want to see white tie worn properly, I give you Benedict Cumberbatch...
Or even (blush), my slightly younger self...
I'll leave you with a final thought - who wore it better? Trump or Frankenstein's monster?
