Why I'm not renewing my Esquire subscription

[Suitable]

You're right. I should clarify: notch lapels on dinner jackets made sporadic appearances long ago but did not achieve acceptance. The current popularity of notch lapels is not an organic development from those sartorial experiments of the 1920s; it's the consequence of manufacturers' cost-cutting measures in the 1970s and the public's declining knowledge of what constitutes evening wear.

 

[Edward]

You're right. I should clarify: notch lapels on dinner jackets made sporadic appearances long ago but did not achieve acceptance. The current popularity of notch lapels is not an organic development from those sartorial experiments of the 1920s; it's the consequence of manufacturers' cost-cutting measures in the 1970s and the public's declining knowledge of what constitutes evening wear.

I suspect there is also an element of familiarity to it: folks these days are, in general,increasingly less familiar with evening wear, and so may feel less intimidated by a more familiar style of jacket that looks like their regular suit.... [huh]

 

[Tomasso]

They are a recent innovation of the mass-market prêt-à-porter industry, which finds it cheaper and easier to produce single-breasted dinner jackets from the pattern used for ordinary business-suit jackets.

The theory that it's cheaper to produce notch lapel DJ's (which has been floating around the menswear forums for years) is simply not accurate. I posed the theory to a RL executive and she said that modern factories can switch patterns in a matter of minutes with nominal added expense. The reality is that store buyers are choosing to order notch lapel DJ's; it's as simple as that. Were they not to buy them, they wouldn't get made.

 

[Suitable]

Well, it had to start somewhere. The general public did not suddenly begin to clamour for notch-lapel dinner jackets a few decades ago.