The Tuxedo--100 Years Old--Making a Strong Comeback
Every day the publicity staff of After Six Inc., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of tuxedos, pores over the nation’s newspapers looking for tidbits on which celebrities are getting married.
After Six doesn’t want to rent or sell the tuxedos to the stars. It wants to give them the fancy attire. Figuring that the buying public often mimics stars, After Six shipped “Rocky” star Sylvester Stallone a tuxedo for his recent wedding, and pays Michael Nader, “Dynasty’s” Dex Dexter, thousands of dollars to model tuxedos from its collection named after the show.
Next year the tuxedo--an American-designed phenomenon--will celebrate its 100th birthday. And after two decades of slowing sales, a spurt of growth in the 1980s has given those who make, rent and sell tuxedos something to celebrate. Meeting on appropriate turf last week--the posh Newporter Inn in Newport Beach--executive members of the American Formalwear Assn. said that the industry is suiting up for one of its best years ever.
With Americans seeing more of their idols in tuxedos, they are not only renting more of the penguin suits but also buying them. What’s more, they are looking for tuxedos with designer labels. This helped push sales over the $100-million mark and rental revenues to $500 million in 1984, industry executives estimate. Both figures are up more than 10% from the year before and signal plenty of growth ahead, executives say.
Much of this growth is credited to President Reagan. Not only does he look smashing in fancy attire, but he also wears tuxedos with the same regularity that his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, wore cardigan sweaters.
Increasingly, the tuxedo industry has taken cues from women’s wear marketing and relies heavily on celebrity appeal. The nation’s three major tuxedo makers are waging a ferocious battle over who can land the biggest celebrities to strut their formal stuff, sometimes paying them as much as $500,000, industry sources said.
“We try to pick up on the hot stars as they come along,” said Robert Maggetti, vice president of sales at After Six, the Philadelphia-based manufacturer that posted sales of more than $55 million last year.
Robert Wagner of TV’s “Hart to Hart” is the glamour boy for Raffinati, a New York-based manufacturer that sold about $15 million of men’s formal wear last year, much of it through its Robert Wagner Collection, said Robert Bennett, president and chief executive officer. “Many guys figure if they wear a tuxedo, they’ll look like Robert Wagner” Bennett said.
All this is a far cry from the tuxedo’s birth in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., in 1886. Its inventor, Griswold Lorillard, virtually scandalized a ball when he showed up in a tailless coat and a black tie instead of the accepted tails and white tie. But the style caught on, and sales flourished until World War II, when Uncle Sam told the manufacturers to make uniforms, not tuxedos. The end of the war saw sales grow, but they fell sharply in the 1960s and ‘70s when a new generation rebelled against the very life style that the tuxedo symbolizes. Not until this decade, when the conservative movement regained momentum with Reagan’s election, did tuxedo sales again pick up.
Pati Miller, fashion editor of California Apparel News, said the current popularity of tuxedos is more than a short-lived fad. Lavish weddings and debutante balls are a part of the new traditionalism, she said. “In the ‘60s, couples were getting married out in fields, so who needed tuxedos? We got lax for a while. But today, when an invitation reads black tie, you won’t find many guys sneaking in with navy blue suits.”
Designers Signed
In 1980, Lord West, the 80-year-old New York-based manufacturer, picked up where designer jeans left off and signed a license with French clothier Pierre Cardin. “That changed everything,” said Harvey Weinstein, president and chief executive of Lord West Inc. Others quickly followed, signing designers such as Yves St. Laurent and Bill Blass.
At rental stores, these designer suits command about $10 more than traditional outfits, which rent for an average $60. Despite the higher cost, they are hot items, said Joe Rossini, co-owner of Rossini Formal Wear in Modesto. “Designer tuxedos don’t look like they’ve been rented,” said Rossini, who added that more than half of his rentals now are the designer variety. Although a traditional tuxedo can be purchased for as low as $150, one bearing a designer label can run to $500.
The styles of designer tuxedos, however, have remained traditional. And in keeping with tradition, about seven of 10 tuxedos rented are still for weddings, said Jim Corbett, president of the New York-based American Formalwear Assn.
“In the scope of world affairs, the tuxedo might not seem very important,” Corbett said, “but to the mother who is about to see her son married, it is everything.”
