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I love the sight of a man in a tuxedo. He's the height of fashion, dressed to the Ts in a black formal tuxedo and looking so suave and well...downright charming. I must confess I never wondered where the design originated, I was just thankful that someone dressed our men so we wouldn't have to do it.

The first known appearance of the tuxedo jacket was at the Autumn Ball in 1886.

Prior to that time the official formal wear for men was a coat with tails and a white tie. Not much is said about the trousers of that time. (but they did wear them)

As it happens, there are two main theories about who designed the first tuxedo and a third theory that staggers the imagination and contradicts the first two theories. It was the Prince of Wales' and his tailor Henry Poole -or- it was Pierre Lorillard IV who designed the first tuxedo for the Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park.

No, it could have been Lorillard's son Griswold and his friends.

Here are the theories:

The Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII is said to have advised James Brown Potter on formal dinner attire. The story goes...he sent Mr. Potter, a resident of Tuxedo Park who was vacationing in England, to his Savile Row tailor who designed the first tuxedo for him. He brought the design back to Tuxedo Park where Pierre Lorillard modified the design and named it the tuxedo.

Tuxedo Park was a community developed by Pierre Lorillard IV and family where they built some elegant homes that soon became homes for the elite of New York. The story says that Pierre Lorillard didn't like the formal wear of the day, formal tailcoats and white ties. He redesigned the coat without the tails, added a black tie to the jacket and named it the tuxedo.

Some say that the Savile Row tailor and his short jacket inspired Lorillard, but others tell a different story about how the tuxedo jacket came to appear at the Autumn Ball. It was not Pierre Lorillard IV who wore a tuxedo to the first Autumn Ball, they say, but it was his son, Griswold and his youthful friends.

Griswold and his friends are said to have cut off the tails from the fashionable formal jacket and donned a red waistcoat and attended the ball with their ragged jackets sans coat tails. The coats worn for fox hunting inspired them to cut the tails off the formal jackets or so the story goes.

Just for fun, there is even a question of where the word, "tuxedo" originated. The main theory is that the land once belonged to the Algonquin

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