Arrow collar
Definition: A stiff, removable shirt collar, usually for men but feminine versions have existed since the Edwardian era. A shirt with an Arrow collar is referred to as an "Arrow shirt". Cluett, Coon & Company and its later incarnations manufactured Arrow collars from ca 1893 to the present, famously promoted in the so-called "Arrow Collar Man" ads illustrated by J C Leyendecker. They had made detachable collars with different names since 1851. The company seems to have begun producing Arrow shirts around 1912. Competitors in the early 20th century included the Triangle brand collar.
Period: Most popular from the 1860's onward, though they may have existed in the United States since the 1820's.
Etymology: Coined ca 1893 when Cluett, Coon & Co trademarked their Arrow brand. The brand name was synonymous with detachable collars by 1920.
Related terms: Arrow shirt (ca 1912), detachable collar (general term), collar (general term), Triangle collar (another brand name)
In context:
Period: Most popular from the 1860's onward, though they may have existed in the United States since the 1820's.
Etymology: Coined ca 1893 when Cluett, Coon & Co trademarked their Arrow brand. The brand name was synonymous with detachable collars by 1920.
Related terms: Arrow shirt (ca 1912), detachable collar (general term), collar (general term), Triangle collar (another brand name)
In context:
"'The first collars made to detach from the shirt band were invented some twenty-five years ago and soon became quite popular. The original detachable collar was of turned-down style, and up to within the last ten or twelve years this was the most popular. Then the stand up collar began to come into fashion, until at the present day the demand for each is about even. The young man of to-day finds that the stand up collar is the most stylish, and if he be thin it will conceal the angularities of a scrawny neck. Consequently young men mostly wear stand up collars. The middle aged man clings to the turned down variety, because he wore it when he was young, and the man no longer young, but not yet middle aged, sport the stand up collars for the same reason. By this you can see that the stand up will be the most popular all around collar in the next generation.'"
- The Clothier & Furnisher, vol 18, no. 4 (November, 1888), pg 48. New York, USA. |
From an interview with an employee of George B Cluett, Brother & Company, a predecessor to Cluett, Peabody & Company, about their styles of detachable collars for the upcoming season.
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"'But, Robert, how am I to take this friend of your fiancée to this hell of a dance this glorious evening of our Lord, if I cannot locate one ten-cent brass button to hold the front of my correct-for-young-men arrow collar to my boiled shirt? Suppose I can't find it—then I can't go. Ah, every cloud has a silver lining.'"
'Shut up.' 'Bob, my son, there are three things every gentleman abhors, a lost collar button, a bow-legged girl, and the girl friend of a girl friend. That's almost an epigram but not quite. This evening I am in for all three.'" - The University of Virginia Magazine, 1920. |
Notice how "arrow" is not capitalized, meaning that the term is not necessarily referring to an Arrow brand collar, much like how a "band-aid" may be a bandage of any brand.
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Examples:
"Eton" Arrow collar by Cluett, Peabody & Company, Inc, ca 1910 US (Troy, NY), the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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