Suspenders-Braces Are Again High Fashion; From Designer Runways To Red Carpet Celebs

Nov. 30, 2009 - PRLog -- Braces - AKA Suspenders - Are Back. No Longer Geezer-Style Or A Boy's Club Exclusive, It's Top Fashion Designers, Celebrity-Hipsters and Pop Rock Sexpots Stoking Today's Gender-Bending Braces Resurgence.

Until WWI's doughboys catapulted belts into the era's au courant fashion rage, three-centuries of men relied on braces to hold up first their breeches, then later, their pants.

Today, braces are again all-the-rage. No longer geezer-style or a Boy's Club exclusive, it's celeb hipsters, A-list designers and flirty feme fashion power - from pop rock sexpots and super-starlets to naughty social debs - that's stoking their oh-so-chic, gender-bending fashion resurgence.

Not since Gordie Gekko serendipitously launched a Wall Street studio prop from a wardrobing afterthought to a Main Street fashion sensation have braces been this white hot. Then, neckwear designer, Peter Tsihlias, reigned the czar of braces. Today, Tsihlias is again churning out handcrafted braces at a pace that rivals 1980s peak. But today's craze is only a warm-up to next year, figures Tsihlias, who frets that his tally of 2,000-plus styles won't satisfy the blockbuster demand when Michael Douglas reprises his braces-brandishing, 1987 role as ruthless financier, Gordie Gekko, in Wall Street 2.

Long before belts, three centuries of men wore braces to hold up their breeches, then their pants. Today, it's hi-fashion hipsters and pop cult media, not function, that's made braces the latest, must-have fashion accessory among trendsetting fashionistas, from rockers and movie stars to top fashion designers.

Back in the 1980s when braces were last a pop cult phenom, Peter Tsihlias, CEO of artisan neckwear maker, Dion Collections, reigned the czar of braces. No thanks to suspender stalwarts Larry King and chunky celeb chef, Ian Hewitson, Tsihlias is suddenly playing catch-up to the unexpected, tsunami-sized demand and again churning out braces faster than a souped-up weed whacker.

No longer geezer-fashion or a Boy's Club exclusive, it's female fashion power and their embrace by an A-list roll call of rock divas, starlets and naughty social debs that's helping stoke their white hot fashion resurgence.

Designers John Varvatos and Marc Jacobs gave braces their catwalk cachet. Movie hunk Daniel Craig bonded with braces on- and off-screen. Longtime brace buff, Johnny Depp, wears his conventionally. Hayden Christensen and Ashton Kutchner, favor theirs slung off the shoulder and irreverently draping at the waist in a devil-may-care nonchalance.

But thank a bevy of braced beauties for their gender-bending popularity. Pop rock sexpots, Fergie and the Pussy Cat Dolls, catapulted braces from MTV edgy chic to Main Street's mainstream. Victoria Beckham's Elle cover made them a stylish staple of spicy soccer-moms. Braces supported Rachel McAdams's role in State of Play and Marie Antoinette star, Kirsten Dunst, traded-in her tummy trimming 1780s corset for civilian life and 1980s-style braces with jeans.

But the real braces bonanza won't kick-off until next year, predicts Tsihlias. That's when Oliver Stone rolls out his Wall Street sequel, again starring Michael Douglas as the ruthlessly cut-throat, braces-brandishing financier, Gordie Gekko.

Tsihlias is already bracing for the sequel's tsunami-sized effect. It was Wall Street, circa 1987, Stone's blockbuster pop cult paean to the unconscionable corruption of wealth and power, that originally catapulted neckwear designer Tsihlias into his role as the world's top maker of tony braces. Tsihlias predicts still another braces blow-out - far bigger than even 1987's - when Wall Street 2 blows off the box office doors in 2010.

So what qualifies, Tsihilas, a neckwear whiz, to double-up as a braces scholar? Surprisingly, neckwear and braces are near synonymous, birds of a feather. Ritzy braces are little more than neckwear silks and necktie motifs stylishly re-jiggered for the 1 1/2" wide strips of brace-strap fabric called "ribbon straps."

Typically, ribbon straps are "woven" neckwear silk. And woven silk - whether destined for neckties or braces - is a design exercise at which Tsihlias excels. His 52-year-old, still family owned Dion Collections ranks one of the world's top handmakers of ritzy neckwear.

Boasting over 2,000-plus different design and color choices, Tsihlias's latest collection touts every kind of polka dot imaginable, along with a mindboggling kaleidoscope of paisleys. There's also stripes, a myriad of plaids, houndstooth and herringbones and solids of every ilk and genre. Each pair, artisan handmade.

Modern braces, by the way, are almost certainly French, probably inspired by Egyptian pharaohs who as far back as 700 B.C. tethered their high waisted tunics with elaborately embellished braces. Originally strips of ribbon affixed to buttonholes called "bretelles", modern braces debuted half-a-century before the French Revolution in 1789.

In France, they're called galluses, a nickname born in jest, thanks to their mocked comparison to France's hanging gallows. The Egyptian's idea of ornately decorated braces wasn't lost on either Napoleon or FDR. At Waterloo, Napoleon wore his embroidered with bumble bees, a signature of his native Corsica and a nod to good luck. At Yalta, FDR's bore the American flag and bald eagle.

The renowned Francophile, Ben Franklin, added an Americana twist when he re-jiggered their design in 1736, re-christened them "gallowses" and officially decreed them a de rigueur uniform essential when organizing America's first volunteer fire department in Philadelphia.
In England - just as they once were known in America - they're called "braces". But in America, it's "suspenders," not braces, that now reigns their more commonplace alias.

Before closing, a word of caution: "Suspenders" is a no-no. Whether England or America, unwittingly substitute "suspenders" for "braces" among a clique of savvy fashionistas and that faux pas will instantly earn you a reputation as a newbie. Technically, "suspenders" - more appropriately, "suspender belt" - refers to the calf-top-positioned garter belt that tautly hold-up men's hosiery. Thank a rookie Sears & Roebuck catalogue copywriter for confusing the two in the 1890s, an undetected and long enduring mistake that forever blurred the distinction between braces and suspenders.

"Braces" namesake is equally fascinating. Designed to remedy round shoulders and poor posture, braces appeared in the mid-1800s as gallowses' therapeutic twin. Far pricier than simple gallowses, or suspenders, "braces" became the genre's more costly, luxury niched siblings.

About Dion Collections:

The still-family owned and now 52-year-old Dion Collections (http://www.dionneckwear.com) was founded in 1956 by Peter Tsihlias, a Greek emigre to Canada. Still helmed by CEO, Peter Tsihlias, and originally named Dion Neckwear - its name a nod to the Greek god, Dion, or Dionysus, one of the 12 fabled Olympian gods - Dion Collections is ranked among the world's premier maker of artisan handcrafted braces and neckwear, including ascots and bow ties.

Equally renowned for its exquisitely handcrafted, all-silk lounge robes and smoking jackets as well as its all-silk pajamas, fashion cognoscentis rank its cashmere and cashmere-blend muffler-scarves among the world's finest. Dion also counts hand-made pocket squares, or pocket handkerchiefs, along with all-silk formal vests and formal wear among its repertoire.

Today, Dion Collections touts over 600 of America's and Canada's premier specialty stores among its retail family.

Dion Collections is headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, at 29 Tandem Road. Zip code is L4K-3G1. Telephone for either Peter Tsihlias or Dion Collections corporate offices is 905-660-3010. Website is http://www.dionneckwear.com. Hi-res CD images and photo merchandise available upon request.

Braces History:

Brief history of braces is available upon request.

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