The Black Tie Rules Worth Breaking

Now for the departures. The golden rule: just choose one! Start with the colour of the jacket. Midnight has long rivalled black, because under artificial light it reads as richer and deeper than black itself. Our Midnight Hampton Wool Dinner Jacket, in barathea with black grosgrain peak lapels, is the purist's way to break the rules without anyone quite noticing.

Then there's velvet, the most civilised way to soften an evening. The Navy Mayfair Velvet Shawl Dinner Jacket goes deeper than black under lamplight, while the Bottle Green Velvet Shawl Lapel Dinner Jacket, with its grosgrain shawl lapel, works as a classic dinner jacket or, for slightly less formal evenings, a smoking jacket.

For those who prefer pattern, Nene velvet works its motif into the pile rather than printing it on. In Midnight Black, the pattern shows only in texture: black on black, noticed only up close. The Green Nene Dinner Jacket sets small olive batons on a dark ground, with a plain contrast-faced lapel.

And then there are those who would rather be the pattern than merely wear it. Favourbrook has made embellished dinner jackets from the very beginning, and the Winnington Newport Jacket is the house at its most avant-garde. Cut from a woven silk and wool cloth with peak lapels, it is covered in a vibrant embroidered floral design, in Midnight Gold or a Midnight Red shot through with navy and gold. It is a dinner jacket for the man who has read the dress code carefully and decided, quite deliberately, to treat it as an opening line. Keep everything else strictly classic, with a white dress shirt, black bow tie and black trousers, and let the flowers have the floor.

Or let the shirt make the argument. The ruffled dress shirt is the black-tie flourish that never quite went away, and our Large Frill Shirts take their cue from the vintage evening styles of the early 1960s, made for the black-tie showmen among you. In Ivory or White cotton poplin, it is the classic statement. In Black Poplin, the frilled front supplies the interest a plain shirt leaves to the bow tie, and it sits quite correctly beneath the Black Clarendon Shawl Lapel Dinner Jacket. For evenings with a looser dress code, such as a party or a wedding, Sky Blue and Blush Pink Stanfield cotton put the frill under a velvet jacket, with or without a bow as the invitation requires. Whichever you choose, keep the jacket plain, because a ruffle prefers not to share the stage.

If the jacket must stay black, move the personality inward. A waistcoat is the most discreet place to make a statement, revealed only when the jacket opens. Gold Bees silk, Lurex Berries velvet or Midnight Red Winnington silk will all do the job beautifully.

The balance is what matters. One flourish reads as confidence, but three can look like a costume. Honour the code, choose your departure carefully, and let everything else stay perfectly, reassuringly correct.