Upturned collar

An upturned collar (or popped collar) is an otherwise flat, protruding collar of either a shirt, jacket, or coat that has been turned upward.

Before the early 20th century, most shirt collars were turned up in some manner. Men and women alike wore tall, stiff collars (as much as three inches tall), not unlike a taller version of a clerical collar, made either of starched linen, cotton, or lace. The writer H. G. Wells remarked in his 1902 book Kipps that these "made [the] neck quite sore and left a red mark under [the] ears." Between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, men's collars were often detachable from their shirts, connected only by two removable collar studs (one in front and one in back). Detachable collars were very stiff, and either stood straight up (as in a Hamilton collar) or were pressed over at an ironed-in, starched crease (as in a Fremont collar). After World War II, mass-production gradually phased out detachable collars from ordinary dress shirts. Occasionally, one can still find detachable collar formal shirts, designed to be worn with a tuxedo or .

Lapels on jackets and coats, which resemble (and derive from) a longer collar, were and are also occasionally worn turned up. The frock coat of the 18th and 19th century often had a solid lapel that was always turned up. Gradually, toward the mid-to-late 19th century, however, lapels became folded down and "pieced out," in the peak, notched, or shawl lapel that one sees to this day. Today, however, a jacket lapel's ability to be turned up helps to provide an extra modicum of warmth when weather is cold or windy.

With the advent of the tennis shirt, however, the upturned collar took on a whole new purpose. In 1929 René Lacoste, the French 7-time Grand Slam champion, decided that the stiff dress shirts and ties usually worn by tennis players were too cumbersome and uncomfortable for the tennis court. Instead, he designed a loosely-knit pique cotton shirt with an unstarched, flat protruding collar and a longer shirt-tail in back than in front. This came to be known as the tennis shirt. Lacoste's design called for a thick piqué collar that one would wear turned up in order to block the sun from one's neck. Thus, the tennis shirt's upturned collar was originally designed by the inventor of the tennis shirt, himself, for ease and comfort on the tennis court, aiding the player by helping to prevent sunburn.

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Wikipedia