A quick intro to dress shirt collars

The men's dress shirt collar is the most important, both in determining the garment's level of formality and in flattering the wearer's unique face. The most least formal the button-down collars and are the best to wear without ties. They also go well with a tie and sweater, blazer, or sport coat.  For formal wear, the wing collar should be chosen.

Most mens dress shirts sport some sort of pointed collar, but there is huge room for variety here. While the standard point collar looks good on most men, those with narrower faces do better with slightly shorter ones, while round faces carry well above long collar points. In general, the bigger the angle between sides of the collar points the more formal the collar is. Cutaway or spread collars require a big knot to cover their wide opening. The edges of the cut-away collar nearly form a straight line above the tie knot; this is the most formal collar arrangement. An exception to the parallelism of spread and formality is the tab collar: here little tabs of fabric extending from each side connect behind the tie knot, holding the collar close together and projecting the knot outward for a precise, no-nonsense look. The white contrast collar, in any style, with or without matching white French cuffs, is a favorite of power-dressers. While it certainly raises a suit-and-tie above the masses, let the wearer be warned against it if he cannot equal its eminence.

On most decent custom dress shirts, the collar's points are kept straight by collar stays. These 2- to 3-inch pointed splints are inserted into slots on the underside of the collar after ironing, and later removed for washing. Besides the plastic ones that come with most shirts, you can buy them in brass, silver, and even ivory, but their material has negligible effect on their function.