Casablanca: Rick's white dinner jacket, and when to wear one

Rick Blaine runs a nightclub in a hot city, and he dresses for it. When Humphrey Bogart walks through Rick’s Café Américain in his ivory dinner jacket, the film tells you in one shot where you are, what the evening is, and who is in charge.

Casablanca (1942) has been quoted to death. Its dinner jacket is quoted less often than it should be, because it answers a question men still ask every summer: what do I wear to black tie when it is thirty degrees out?

The jacket

The costumes were designed by Orry-Kelly, one of the great Hollywood costume designers.

• Double-breasted, fastening on two buttons with more on show, so the front makes a long, clean line.
• Long shawl lapels that sweep down across the chest and lengthen Bogart’s whole figure.
• Ivory, not stark white: a warm off-white that flatters skin under lamplight.
• Shaped: high armholes and a fitted waist give the jacket an hourglass line.

With it: black evening trousers with a black satin stripe down each leg, a white dress shirt with a long-pointed collar, and a black bow tie.

Why it works

It is right for the climate. The white dinner jacket is warm-weather evening dress. It belongs to hot countries, summer and outdoor evenings, which is exactly where Rick is.

The black trousers anchor it. The jacket is the only light thing in the outfit. Everything below the waist stays formal and dark, so the look reads as black tie, not as a costume.

The shawl lapel softens it. A shawl collar has no notch or peak, just one unbroken curve, and on an ivory jacket it looks relaxed rather than stiff.

When to wear one today

• A black-tie wedding between June and September, especially outdoors or in the evening heat. Black tie decoded covers the full dress code.
• A summer gala or a cruise.
• Not in winter, and not in a city ballroom in January. In cold weather a black or midnight dinner jacket is correct, and ivory looks lost.

Two rules: keep the trousers black with a stripe, and keep the bow tie black. The white jacket is the one light note; everything else stays dark.

Getting it made

Sam makes dinner jackets and tuxedos to your measurements at the Vaughan studio, and the fabric library lists an ivory dinner-jacket cloth to start from. Sketch Rick’s jacket as a double-breasted shawl with a bow tie: draw the Casablanca jacket. The Drawing Board draws matching trousers; Rick’s were black, and yours should be too.

Where the details come from: BAMF Style and Black Lapel.