Collar

The Folded Piece Around the Neck

A collar starts from a general idea: something which goes around the neck. Fashion narrows that idea to a garment part. In fashion, a collar is the piece of a shirt or dress around the neck which folds over. The fold is the defining construction: collar fabric is cut so that it stands or turns around the neckline and then folds down over the garment, giving a finished edge at the neck and a shaped frame for the face and throat. Because it sits so visibly at the top of a garment, small collar differences change a shirt's character: the height of the band, the length and spread of the points, and whether the collar is soft or stiffened all read as style choices.

Details of fastening and stiffening belong to the collar's definition. The tips may optionally have buttons to fasten the collar down to the shirt, for a so-called button-down collar, a style in which the collar points are anchored rather than left free. Collar stays, the small stiffeners placed inside the collar points, keep the points flat and prevent curling, and are a standard part of dress-shirt construction. The collar also connects the shirt to the rest of neckwear and dress: bow ties, ties, white tie and black tie dressing are all arranged around and under a collar, so collar form and neckwear form have to be read together. Types of neckline are the collar's close relatives on garments without a folded collar, where the shaped neck edge does the same framing job.

Animal Collars and the Draught Collar

Outside fashion, the word keeps its general meaning of a band around the neck. A collar can be a piece of material put around the neck of an animal, typically a pet, for control, identification or other purposes. Flea collars, for instance, repel fleas. Identification tags and medical information are often placed on collars, so a pet's collar carries both a means of holding the animal and a record of who it is and where it belongs. Working animals wear a different scale of the same idea: the livery collar belongs to uniform dress, while the draught collar is heavy equipment rather than clothing.

The collar on a draught animal is a robustly constructed leather and straw device that is intended to sit comfortably on the animal's shoulders around its neck and support a set of hames that transfer the draught forces from the animal to the traces. Its shape is a matter of fit and welfare as much as strength: the load of a cart or plough passes through the collar, so it must spread that force over the shoulders without chafing or restricting breathing. Placed side by side, the three collars show why the word is filed as a general term: a folded band of shirt fabric, a pet's identification strap and a horse's pulling gear share nothing but position, the ring around the neck, and the name that position earned them.