Serendipity; or a conundrum resolved

 Amongst others one of the sartorial things I like is a detachable collar. 

Aficionados of the detachable collar these days tend to the stiff variety, disparaging anything not loaded with starch as little better than the attached variety.

Now n a blog dedicated to things synthetic this presents a problem because the collars intended to take a good stiffening to cardboard consistency are invariably of bonded cotton and linen.  Indeed for a proper shiny finish linen is considered indispensable.

So here's the conundrum: how to find a detachable collar that meets the criteria of synthetic?

 A nylon detachable collar might at best be considered semi-stiff because it is not constructed to take the starch and isn't really suited to the hot ironing with which the starch is set.

I have starched a nylon shirt, applying spray starch to the collar, cuffs and breast pockets of a uniform shirt.  But that's far from being the same thing.

The only nylon detachable collars that I have found came with 2 mail-order shirts by Holroyd and Cooper, shirtmakers of Whitworth Street, Manchester.  The subject of this 2005 Yahoo Groups post and this photoset on my old site.

 They are of the same striped fabric as the body of the shirt and thus look quite strange worn with any other tunic shirt — although I have done so on occasion.

As an alternative there were celluloid collars and imitations of the same in acetate from certain American re-enactment costumiers.  Alas I've so far failed to persuade them to respect my credit card!

And then there is plastic.

Some years ago I bought two plastic "wipe clean" waiter's wing collars which are fine but the style is of limited use.

Today, entirely by chance I got very lucky indeed.

I bought a Van Heusen nylon tunic shirt and the seller had included two detachable collars.

To my utter delight they turned out to be plastic.

Bond Street, the modern semi-stiff collar

As it says both on the packet and embossed inside the collar itself.

So now I have 2 wipe clean, satisfyingly synthetic, detachable collars to wear with my tunic shirts.

Leaving now a desire for something rather stiffer.






So, down the side here are some photos — in what has become the traditional manner — showing the surprise finds from packet to body.  I'm not sure what a blog visitor can do with the pictures:  I've uploaded them in versions large enough to see the weave of the fabric in many cases, but set them small to display reasonably without overwhelming the page. So please let me know if you can or cannot access the large versions for viewing.