Dean Brough: If it's white it's right in the shirt fashion world

The white dress shirt symbolises power and prestige. Photo / Thinkstock

Opinion

The classic white dress shirt is familiar and omnipresent in men's fashion. As a result, we tend to not realise that for more than 200 years, this singular item of apparel has been able to define and represent status, wealth and fashion norms.

The history of this garment is rich and, in the main part, untold.

The influence of the men's white dress shirt can be traced back to the Victorian era, where it was an important symbol of wealth and class distinction and a powerful emblem of sobriety and uniformity - despite it being usually hidden by outer garments.

The pure white colour of the cloth fulfilled masculine ideals of resolute austerity, and only those of substantial prosperity could afford to have their shirts washed frequently and to own enough of them to wear.

The link between social distinction and colour of the cloth was a marker for affluence, and the terms "white collar" and "blue collar" evolved from this delineation.

The collar was also used as a symbol of status, with high-standing armour-like detachable collars preventing a downward gaze. High, rigid, starched collars distinguished the elite from clerks, who wore low collars for ease of movement - the idiom "to look down one's nose" was, in part, connected to this consequential upright facial stance.

Arguably, by the late 19th century, the unadorned white dress shirt was intrinsically linked to appropriate moral masculine behaviour and this austerity of dress indicated that a man could be trusted and was soberly business-like.

By the close of the 19th century, the use of the white dress shirt to define status had diminished.

Increasing affordability and availability of the white dress shirt enabled a man to wear it for church, the "high street" and for employment in clerical roles.

The defining factor for class separation was no longer the whiteness, but the fit, quality of the cloth and discreet style variations.

After the end of World War I, a societal shift occurred and a new, softer and more fluid look was developed for less formal clothing.

One of the main influences was the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), who was a 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 fashion.

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, insisted on a dress code, demanding that his office employees wear a classic white shirt.

The next significant change for the white dress shirt was the introduction of synthetic fabrics - with questionable benefits for comfort - in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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 "proper" garment amid the vast array of highly coloured and printed casual shirts on the market.

For a brief period in the early 1980s, an innovative romantic style of dressing with loosely styled foppish and frilled white dress shirts was the height of fashion.

Then, through the 1980s, "power dressing" was fashionable in urban business contexts - and the white dress shirt regained the association with power and prestige that it still holds.

Dean Brough is a senior fashion studio lecturer at Queensland University of Technology.

- theconversation.edu.au