New Year's: The Eroticism of the Tuxedo.

Screenshot from a fellow who, by daylight, wouldn't dare undo a button. But by night, -- an entirely different animal.

"The thing about a tuxedo is that it is virile and feminine at the same time."

-- Catherine Deneuve.

New year's has come and gone. I am still savoring the wave of formalwear posts from revelers.

Both the height of stark, masculine style, and the height of effete, dandyish elegance. Dominant, aristocratic, yet soft, lustrous, decadent. The luxury of the garment both requires the plainest, starkest, simplest color scheme, yet simultaneously allows for the maximum experimentation under the guise of creative black tie, with hues of midnight, sapphire, emerald, burgundy, champagne, and silver occasionally tracing into the black & white palette. Perfectly queer fetish fuel.

There are some suit & tie fetish guys whose entire fetish centers on eveningwear: even suits & ties aren't quite formal enough for their rarefied tastes. It is easy to see why, since the tuxedo exudes sexuality. The suit connotes business, whereas the tuxedo connotes leisure: it is the uniform of after-hours, of sipping champagne, then whiskey. The twilight hours of lowered inhibitions.

The elegant impracticality of the whole ensemble offers its own allure. The satin bow, with its silken loops so easily disturbed. As the evening wears on, everybody gets a bit disheveled. The shirt studs are so easy to tug and fiddle with, barely holding the starched cotton together. So readily undone, starting the slow, sensual descent from formal to feral. It is fascinating to see fellows who, by daylight, wouldn't suffer a single thread out of place, but, the moment the clock strikes twelve on New Year's, they're all too happy to unravel the satin bow and let the ends dangle, an open collar or open shirt stud revealing a tantalizing glimpse of their chest and neck, the unraveled silk beckoning on either side.

And there are some who prefer patent laceups, but for me opera pumps are the most erotic shoes: that perfect combination of stark formality and dainty, fey decadence, soft and elegant, masc and femme. So easy to slip off and play with, buttery soft calfskin barely cupping the arches. Formal hosiery echoes this effete impracticality, always thin to the point of being sheer, concentrating the erotic sweat that accumulates after a long, horny evening. The nineteenth-century court shoe of leisure has now become yet another marker of the menswear enthusiast, the preferred footwear of those who've seen their fair share of Leyendecker drawings.

As the twenties wear on, let's hope we invent more occasions to enjoy what we wear.