How should a bartender dress? Are the white-dinner-jacketed staff of London’s Savoy the ideal? Or the aloha-shirt-clad crew behind the bar at Latitude 29 in New Orleans? How about the bartenders outfitted in colored mechanic’s jumpsuits at a London Bar whose moniker is shapes?
At the dawn of the profession, the bartender’s uniform was a white coat, putting them in a similar category of service as the pharmacist, the butcher, the barber, the soda jerk. As the popularity of cocktails increased, the job’s status rose, becoming an indispensable position in hospitality. In fine restaurants and hotels, bartenders often wore dinner jackets and tuxedos—a tradition carried on today in iconic institutions like Hollywood’s Musso & Frank and New York’s Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle hotel.
In today’s new cocktail golden age, there is no one typical uniform for a bartender. Perhaps more surprising still is how few bars these days—even the fancy ones—seem to require much of a uniform at all. But amid the sea of heavy leather aprons, tight waistcoats and branded T-shirts, a new generation of high-concept bars is standing out for using fashion to complement their cocktails.
