Dickey (garment)

Common card · No. 246596

A dickey (also dickie and dicky, and tuxedo front in the U.S.) is a type of shirtfront that is worn with black tie (tuxedo) and with white tie evening clothes. The dickey is usually attached to the shirt collar and then tucked into the waistcoat or cummerbund. Some dickey designs have a trouser-button tab, meant to secure the dickey-bottom to the waistband of the trousers, and so prevent the dickey from becoming untucked. The rigid dickey shirtfront, a bosom-front for a dress shirt and originally called the detachable bosom, was one of the first successful, commercial applications of celluloid. Like the detachable shirt collar, it was invented as a separate accessory for the shirt, which thus could be washed, starched, and pressed more readily than could be if the dickey were an integral part of the shirt. Among dandies, the use of a dickey is considered bad style in the wearing of traditional modes of black tie and white tie evening dress. Etymologically, the word dickey is from Cockney...

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