In the spirit of ringing in the New Year in style, here’s my interpretation of the infamous “Black Tie Creative” dress code.

As always, keep in mind this is my personal point of view. Our posts are meant to be used as inspiration and interpretation, not direct replication.

When it comes to “black tie” formal dress, there are hundreds of traditional “rules”.  And of course, there are several long-form “rulebooks” on formal etiquette availbale online (for example, this one is pretty good).

After all, as the old adage goes, “you have to know the rules before you can effectively break them”. With that said, once you understand the foundations of formal dress, being creative while respecting its tradition can be a lot of fun.

The key to “black tie creative” is to show that you know the rules by subtly bending them, rather than boldly breaking them. Here are five examples.

1. Devil in the Details

The safest way to tackle “black tie creative” is to keep the foundations of formalwear in check, but tweak the details a little.

For example: the black velvet trim on the midnight blue tuxedo, the matching velvet tie, the subtle print on the white french cuff shirt, the doillie pocket square, etc.

At first glance it looks traditional, but when you look closer you see the subtle creativity behind the look.

Traditionalists would say a tuxedo should be worn with a clean shave, but I’m not losing the beard anytime soon.

That said, I probably should have cleaned up the lines for this shoot…

Midnight navy tux?

Why not some midnight navy loafers.