My third eye can see straight through your shit

By the close of the 19th century, the use of the white dress shirt as an insignia to define status had diminished. Increasing affordability and availability of the white dress shirt allowed a man to wear it for church, the “high street” and for employment within clerical roles – the defining factor for class separation was no longer the whiteness of colour, but the fit, quality of the cloth and discreet style variations.Arrow Shirt Collar advertisement, 1907. Wikimedia CommonsAfter the end of the first world war, a societal shift was occurring and a new, softer and more fluid look was developing for less formal clothing.One of the key influences was the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII), who was a popular leader of fashion at the time. His rejection of the white shirt, with its severe lines, in favour of soft, floppy, coloured shirts created a major shift in menswear. Nevertheless, in the early 1920s the white dress shirt was still associated with moral respectability.In 1924 the founding father of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, was insistent on a dress code, demanding his office employees wear a classic white shirt as part of their mandatory attire. This association with ideals of steadfastness was also played out in the fictional American advertising creation of the Arrow Collar Man (1905-31), with his rigid white shirt, promoting American masculine idealsThe next significant change for the white dress shirt was the introduction of synthetic fabrics, with questionable ability for comfort, in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

My third eye can see straight through your shit

Then in the late 1960s and early 1970s an escalation of floridity occurred, in particular, frontal flounces and ruffles, as well as increased collar widths. But the white dress shirt was still seen as a very “proper” garment, as a vast array ofhighly coloured and printed casual shirts popularised the market place.Seinfeld’s ‘Puffy Shirt’ on display at the National Museum of American History. Wikimedia CommonsIn the early 1980s, for a brief period, an innovative romantic style of dressing with loosely styled foppish and frilled white dress shirts was the height of fashion – influenced by popular new romantic bands, such as British band Spandau Ballet.Then through the 1980s “power dressing”, with labels such as German fashion house Hugo Boss, was fashionable in urban business contexts and the white dress shirt regained its association with power and prestige – a legitimacy of place that it rightfully still holds, albeit an association aligned with designer names.