I almost don't need a tailcoat anymore. One of the groups that I play with most regularly has just abolished the dress code stipulation of tails for Masterworks concerts, and my regular job in Syracuse has been "all-black" only ever since I joined.
(Confusingly, they call it concert black, which used to mean "short tuxedo, white dress shirt, and black bow tie"...but apparently not anymore.)
Orchestra dress codes are labyrinths of complex and contradictory information, mostly designed to punish young women who might be more attractive than the older women who write the dress code rules.
The men's side is simpler, and we usually only need remember whether we're supposed to be wearing a black button up shirt (most often, in my case) or a white button-up shirt. Some groups enforce the details more rigorously than others, but a black suit and black dress shoes gets you 90% of the way there for most work.
In the increasingly blurred gender boundaries of the modern workplace, however, we are switching more and more to Option 1 and Option 2 dress codes, which don't specify traditional male/female boundaries. And (this is largely a good thing) the fussier dress police are agreeing that it's simplest for everyone just to dress in black.
But not this time of year. Holiday Pops means pops of red. For me, it's a flannel tartan tie. I have a few other red ties as well, and maybe even a red cummerbund buried in the arm of a tuxedo sleeve somewhere. It's nice to have something a little more colorful than just "black" to wear to work now and again.
(Especially when you are going to work all day every day for the foreseeable future...)
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