Joke Issue: Thoughts by Cholly Knickerbocker
Yesterday evening, in what can only be proclaimed as an offense against my rather placid senses, a certain co–resident of mine — a man who we in the Quadrangle are ashamed to call one of our own, although he shall remain unnamed — disdained me for foregoing the traditional shirt and cummerbund combination in favor of the slightly marvelous backless waistcoats, seen on Savile Row this past year. Seeing me approach, this unnamed fellow began to snigger and snarl at me, but I merely shrugged them off, owing to my magnanimous character. He then deigned to state, in front of his merry cohort: “Cholly! What on earth are you wearing dear Heavens?” Ignoring the clearly despicable nature of this statement and putting aside the notion of manners, was he really insulting my dinner attire? Sirs, I implore you to reason: when did we become so narrow–minded on the issue of Eveningwear?
It is that this Great Depression has in fact stiffly starched the standards of formality of after–dark apparel. We gentlemen of this fair University are presumed to function under the auspices of modernity, so I was therefore taken aback by Roger’s (oh, alright, Roger Wyndam, there you have it you rascal! I’ve outed you!) bizarre traditionalism: was it really so egregious a mistake that I had just made? Why of course it wasn’t! But there you have it, certain people are still stuck in 1926.
I am an embracer of modernity. It is therefore with this in mind that I decided to throw convention out of the window — and I mean really, terribly far from the windowsill. Having scheduled to attend the dinner part of a silly little acquaintance of mine this past week, I decided this was the perfect testing ground for my new white dinner jacket. Esquire last month proclaimed it to be at the apex of modernity, to be seen on rising young men; a perfect description of myself, if you will. White dinner jackets have been spotted almost as frequently as black and midnight blue ones in New York City, so I thought I’d be the first to bring this fashion to Pennsylvania! Of course, I wasn’t going to go purely on whimsy; I was to follow Esquire’s “Guide to Black Tie Affairs”: my jacket was double–breasted with a turndown collar and I made sure to have self lapel facings. I wore it with tropical dress trousers, patent leather oxfords, a white shirt (soft, of course) with a laundered collar and a black tie. I looked spiffing.
Well Sirs, as you can imagine, I was the toast of the town that evening. All men admired me for my admirable courage in bucking all trends and embracing the best of what 1934 had to offer. All women stared at me with lascivious eyes. Success! So gentlemen, take heed, and follow my example. The white dinner jacket is here to stay! Huzzah!
