Novi High School has been a Blue Ribbon school twice, and its seniors arrive at our counter every spring with the same photograph on a phone: the dress. It’s already bought. His job is to go with it without going as it, and a rented tuxedo does that in two small pieces. The rest of the tuxedo stays out of it.
The two pieces
The tie and the pocket square. The tuxedo itself stays black or midnight blue; that’s what makes it a tuxedo. The color of the dress goes in the bow tie, with a pocket square a shade lighter. A full jacket in the dress’s color is a costume, and every photograph from that night will say so for twenty years.
Rent it, fitted
He rents, and he rents in person, because a seventeen-year-old’s measurements are a guess by the time a box arrives. A consultant puts him in a jacket and looks at the shoulder first; a wrong shoulder means the next jacket, and the consultant keeps going until the seam ends where the boy does. The trousers are pinned to his prom shoes before he leaves the floor.
Bring the phone
The tie gets held against the photograph of the dress; “sort of a dusty blue” has never matched anything. Bring the shoes he’ll dance in too, because Roman, master tailor at Lincoln Tailor, on site in our store, hems to the shoe in the room.
Also for Novi: The Gala at the Sheraton: Rent or Own the Tuxedo. More on tuxedo rentals, or plan your visit to our Oak Park showroom.
