The shawl lapel is what makes a dinner jacket look like a dinner jacket. Where a notch or a peak breaks the line, the shawl runs in a single continuous curve from the collar roll all the way down to the front edge. It is the oldest of the evening lapels, the one the original dinner jacket wore in the nineteenth century before the peak arrived in eveningwear, and to a lot of eyes it is still the best-looking. Cut in black barathea or midnight blue, a shawl-lapel dinner jacket is among the finest pieces of work that leaves this shop.
How the shawl lapel reads
It is the most traditional of the evening lapels and, for most people who look at it closely, the most elegant. That unbroken curve is softer to the eye than the sharp geometry of a peak, and it gives up nothing in formality. It is correct at any black-tie occasion you will ever be invited to.
On a single-breasted dinner jacket the shawl is the traditional answer and the one we recommend. On a double-breasted dinner jacket the peak is the more usual partner. Either way the lapel is faced in silk grosgrain or satin, and that facing is the only shine allowed on the jacket. It is also the single detail that separates a dinner jacket from a black business suit at twenty paces.
We cut these in black barathea, which is the traditional choice, and in midnight blue, which is a shade dressier and reads blacker than black once the lights come on. Now and then somebody asks for a white or ivory jacket in a light wool for a hot-weather function or a destination wedding, and we are always happy to make one.