The other style

The other style.

Worn with a small nylon tunic shirt.  The shirt seems to be boys' cut, so is also tight under the arms.

More Plastic Collars

Collection of acetate collars.

Sheffield style acetate collar.

Clifton style acetate collar.

Sheffield collar attached to a nylon tunic shirt by rear stud

Unfastened

Fastened up with front stud.

Plus tie.

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.

Wardrobe

Method and order.

I'm afraid that I'm not very good at it, but sometimes I manage to form some sort of organisational habit and that's what's happened here.

Top left, ties and shirts for the office.

Bottom left, uniform shirts - daily wear when not at the office, and occasionally when I am if there's manual labour to be done.

Bottom right:  dress shirts, dinner shirts and tunic shirts.

The rest I suppose are "other", pretty shirts for occasions, odd ones, dressing up ones, and simply ordinary ones that occasionally get selected for work.

The method is: clean laundry gets put away on the left-hand end of a rail.  Shirts are selected, and this applies most to office wear, from the right.  I may just take the next available or I may pass over one or several for a variety of reasons.  That results in unfavoured shirts accumulating to the right-hand end of the rail and from time to time it dawns on me that I should put them back amongst the "others".

It is perhaps a little perverse to have a lot of shirts and only regularly use a small sub-set.  But it works for me because one of the aims is that in going out I'm never quite in the same outfit twice.

Oh, it hardly needs to be said but with a few oddities marked terylene or polyester by far the majority are nylon and all are synthetic.

Static

One of the complaints made of nylon that became folklore as it's popularity declined through the Seventies was that it was a massive generator of static electricity.

Well "massive" is a bit of hyperbole but it's true that the interactions of fabrics can produce static, friction in any material can do it - amber ans silk are customary in demonstrations - but synthetics more so and more noticeably.  What became added to the mythology but which is not true in my experience is that this static electricity could be a problem or even a danger.  I've been working with electronic components for two decades now and never once have I observed any damage that could be attributed to clothing-generated static.

Office Wear

The possibility of static can be reduced by using a fabric conditioner in the wash but I gave that up some time ago.  Mostly it doesn't bother me and sometimes it can be fun.

Static Cling

After a day of wearing a suit with a viscose lining I get home and take off my jacket and sometimes get the static-cling I've tried to picture above.  It's a weird feeling, especially if unexpected, but I've come to like it and enjoy it when it happens.

Oh, I do get static shocks in the office when touching something grounded like the sink taps but that's nothing to do with what I wear; it's the damn carpets and it happens to everybody!

Uniform

I didn't intend to do this, but the picture's taken and it's likely that I'd not get around to it tomorrow.

The essence of a uniform is that it be... well uniform.  So a single uniform shirt could be a contradiction in terms.  I've just washed and hung to dry twelve blue ex-police nylon-terylene uniform shirts.  In addition to the police these were issued to prison officers and ambulance crew but not (for reasons that should be obvious) to the fire services.

A peculiarity is that different constabularies and other agencies each contracted with a manufacturer for their uniforms so there are differences in detail such as the shape of breast pocket flaps or the means of epaulette fixing depending on which force it was made for and there were several competing manufacturers including Van Heusen, Reliant and Banner..  Another is that it was stipulated that the fabric could not be used for retail products while the contract ran, presumably in an attempt to make impersonation of a police officer slightly more difficult.  So the two that I have without pockets are most likely post-contract made to finish off a run of fabric made surplus by the contract ending.

A memory from about the age of 11 is of the local police headquarters open day one summer where the majority of officers, allowed to shuck their tunics, were in these synthetic uniform shirts.

Washed a dozen implies worn a dozen which is indeed the case.  If it's not a work day or a special occasion that would justify dressing up these are what I wear.

The white version is rarer and was unmixed nylon.  Rarer because white was only issued to senior officers at the time, when the Met was the first force to put all officers in white shirts nylon had been replaced with polycotton.  Why unmixed I'm not certain but my guess is that the fabric mix of the blue shirts originated from mixing fibres of available colours to produce the particular steel-blue colour required.  If anyone knows otherwise please do tell!