Even in the very best places, patronized by the bluest of the bloods, you will always see more men and women informal than in soup and fish.
New Yorkers generally dress only when the occasion demands it, such as the opera, an important theatrical opening, or a formal affair.
(INSIDE STUFF: The "tuxedo" or dinner jacket is semi-formal, not formal. When good dressers wear it, they wear turndown, never wing, collars.)
But if New Yorkers do not dress formally every time they go out, they surely dress with taste.
New York women seldom wear hats.
They NEVER wear white or pastels in the summer, nor white shoes or stockings.
Black is proper all year, even during the dog days.
Best-dressed men always wear hats, never wear sport clothes in the city.
MIDNIGHT MANNERS: