Fashion & Accessories 1967
After Six
The Informal Formals
FROM THE PRINTED PAGEOriginal ad copy
OCR transcription from the archived page. Scanning and reading-order errors may remain.
The Informal Formals We're not saying you don't need a conventional tuxedo. But there are times when you need something less—well, less formal. So we added a new kind of formalwear to our collection. We call it the Informal Formal. What you get with the Informal Formal is a whole different look. Which, in turn, gives you a whole different feeling. You know, all dressed up. But in a casual kind of way. And how many times have you wished for that? How many times, for instance, have you felt just a little overdressed and self-conscious? And started to squirm. It's not that your tuxedo was tight. It's just that you weren't loose. Or how about the times your wife got all dressed up in a new cocktail dress that just knocked you out? And you put on your good tropical suit. And you just didn't make it. You'd have made it in an Informal Formal. What you do is hang one between your tropical suit and your tuxedo. And when the time comes (as it must in every man's life) when you don't know whether to reach for the tropical or the tux, you reach for this. You can wear the Informal Formal to lots of places. For example, dinner and dancing at the Club—on a Tuesday night. At a romantic candlelight dinner for two—with domestic champagne. To a very expensive supper club—when you're only sitting at the bar. You get the idea. Now, why not get the Informal Formal? FORMAL WEAR, TRADITIONAL, CONTEMPORARY, AVANT GARDE, AND ALL ACCESSORIES FROM HATS TO SHOES after Six BY RUDOFKER, 2ND & MARKET STS., PHILA.; 1290 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS, NY
Commentary
The enormous title is a small puzzle: how can formal clothes be informal? I find the answer below it, where a man in a powder-blue dinner jacket occupies an armchair as comfortably as if the evening belongs to him. He has a drink, an open posture, and a bow tie. The jacket supplies the occasion; the pose removes the stiffness. Two inset scenes offer alternatives in miniature: a couple at a table and another walking together. The large portrait makes ease look like the product, while the little scenes supply places to use it.
The copy is unusually precise about the wardrobe problem. It does not ask the reader to give up his tuxedo. It asks him to hang a third option between that and a “tropical suit.” The proposed gap is social rather than technical: a Tuesday at the Club, a candlelight dinner with “domestic champagne,” a supper club where one only sits at the bar. These details suggest a buyer who wants to recognize the degree of ceremony before he walks in. The ad treats being overdressed as bodily discomfort: he “started to squirm,” although the tux was not tight. The product promises a release from that feeling.
The assumptions are visible too. The wife’s cocktail dress sets the standard, while the man must find clothes equal to it. The named venues and the two printed shop addresses locate the sale in a world of physical stores and occasion-specific wardrobes. A modern reader may still recognize the anxiety of choosing the right level of dress, but the prescribed answer—a separate garment for a narrow band of evenings—belongs to a more elaborate social dress code.
For a new copywriter, the title’s apparent contradiction earns attention, then the short sentences make it useful. “It’s not that your tuxedo was tight. It’s just that you weren’t loose” shifts “loose” from fit to mood. “Domestic champagne” and “only sitting at the bar” make the desired level of formality concrete without defining it abstractly. The lesson is to name the awkward moment a product solves, then let specific scenes do the explaining.
Dessy’s history of After Six traces the name to a Philadelphia suit business begun in 1903 and describes its role in rental formalwear. Dessy acquired the After Six trademark in 2011; its current After Six collection centers on dresses and occasion wear.
The enduring idea is that clothing can help someone feel appropriately dressed and at ease at the same time. The 1967 ad sells that balance through a man’s intermediate evening jacket and a set of prescribed social occasions; the brand’s current products address different wearers and events.