Dress shirts - definitions and features
Dress shirts, in British English, are shirts exclusively used for formal morning or evening wear, and are often called dinner shirts. Confusingly, in American English, dress shirts are simply formal shirts with a collar and can be used for everyday use, referred to in Britain simply as "shirts".
There are a number of differences between dress shirts (in the British sense) and normal men's shirts. The most obvious is the collar - in dress shirts, the collar is often a wing collar, rather than a folded-down collar, and can sometimes be detached from the shirt (called a tunic shirt). However, this a not a rule, and some dress shirts are available with a normal folded down collar.
Dress shirts used in evening wear tend to have a smaller wing size as they are intended to be used with a bow tie. However, dress shirts used for morning wear tend to have slightly deeper wings, and can be worn with a cravat, for example at weddings.
Dress shirts traditionally have always been made from white cotton, and because of the formality of the occasions the shirts are worn to, this tradition is almost always still adhered to. Buttons on the front of the shirt remain covered (with a covered placket called a fly front), as opposed to being exposed in normal shirts. Alternatively, in some dress shirts, studs are used to fasten the shirt instead of buttons, for a more formal look.
Morning dress shirts traditionally have a starched front, although it is becoming more common to use a soft fronted shirt with a fly front at weddings. Pleats, and even ruffles, have been added to the front of dress shirts, although currently, a plainer look is in favour.
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