The fourth of my articles for clothing brand House of Foxy’s menswear line 20th Century Chap, published in March 2017.
This article is no longer online, so below is the original article in full.
Chap Talk: Getting to the point
A brief history of the spear-point collar.
One of the most popular styles of shirt collar during the ’30s and ’40s was the spear-point. But like all menswear it seems its evolution is hard to pin down.
One thing we do know is that the term “Spear-point” is a relatively new description of this collar. Back in the 1920s, at least in the United States where the style first appeared, they where referred to as “Barrymore” collars due to the collars association with the Hollywood actor John Barrymore (grandfather of ’80s actress Drew Barrymore).
The story goes that Barrymore, an old-hand stage actor wanted to keep up with the younger actors and asked his tailor to make the points of his shirt collar longer, naturally this led to a little ‘one-upmanship’ on the part of his fellow actors, among them George Raft, Malcolm McGregor, and Chester Morris.
Whether this tale is apocryphal or not, it does make a great story, either way the craze quickly got out of hand, as all fashion fads do, with some collars reaching the dizzying lengths of up to 6 inches! Even that greatest of showmen (or perhaps show-off would be a more appropriate word) Cab Callaway got involved in the trend, helping it spread round the Jazz community and further popularising the style.
Thankfully clearer heads prevailed and the trend stuck, settling down at a more reasonable collar length of about 3.5 inches. The style quickly became the ‘must-have’ for anyone wanted to look ‘up-to-date’ in both the middle and working-classes, across the U.S. and over into the U.K and Europe as the ’20s turned to the ’30s.
The trend eventually died out during the mid-’50s as both Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Beat scene brought about a deliberate rejection of the old formal styles.
These days the spear-point collar shirt is again the ‘must-have’ item for anyone who wants to look the part at a ’40s event or evoke that classic look of the late ’20s and ’30s. We are particularly proud of our spear-point at 20th Century Chap and we have a number of fabric choices for you to choose from so why not check out our range here: http://www.20thcenturychap.com/shirts
