Plus is there such a thing as Red Collar?
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It comes from what the workers would be wearing. White collar workers would be wearing white shirts, e.g. they’re office workers, while blue collar workers would be wearing a boiler suit or a denim shirt, e.g. manual labour or factory worker. Since nobody wore a red outfit there’s no such thing as red collar.
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Long but extremely simplified discussion ahead because A) not a historian and B) ELI5. I just like old clothes.
These terms actually date back to the days when only the wealthy had large wardrobes. Most people only had a few outfits and washing machines weren’t really a thing yet. During the pre-washing machine days, men might only have 2 shirts, which made it impossible to keep them clean. Enter the industrial revolution and the creation of the “factory foreman” and other similar jobs. General workers could wear dirty, stained and tattered clothes like overalls every day and no one cared. Their work clothes were often long-wearing, near indestructible, and perhaps most importantly, *blue* denim. But the foreman and his ilk were expected to wear suit-coats and ties, like the factory owners and investors. He was the “middle class” of businessman. He didn’t make enough money to have a new shirt for every day of the week, he spent most of his time in the hot, sweaty, dirty factory, but was still expected to be clean, stain-free, and presentable at all times.
So a shirt with removable collars was invented to save his poor wife who spent every night scrubbing sweat stains from her husband’s shirts. Now, this was also the era of new detergents to replace basic lye soaps. Laundry bluing became a thing. (it’s actually still great and why so many laundry detergents are colored blue. Adding bluing to the rinse of white clothes makes them appear brighter white even though the amount of dye left behind is nearly impossible to detect with the naked eye) These jobs were men who started in the lower classes and were promoted up, usually due to connections with wealthier families. These positions were almost never filled by those with money. These men’s wives were extremely proud of their husbands who were seen to have climbed out of poverty. The foreman’s poor wife (or sometimes maid, if he was very successful) would remove the soiled collar from the shirt, (cuffs were typically detachable, too) attach a new one, and spend the next day scrubbing that white collar clean, rinsing it with a bluing agent to make the white brighter, and starch it to stand straight. Often times, these wives took so much pride in making sure their husbands looked good that they’d wash those collars until they actually took on a blue tint.
It seems like that would be the end of the story, but it actually goes a step or two farther. Enter menswear fashion. Tailors saw the lightly tinted collars and for reasons I do not know went “Hey, let’s just make the collars blue like the work shirts!” They did, somehow sold it as an improvement (yay marketing!) and all of a sudden “middle class” workmen (who were between the laborers and the executives,) were walking around wearing white shirts with blue collars and cuffs under their suit jackets.
The terms became muddled with the invention of the television news anchor. While news anchor is a categorically “white collar” job, studios found that white shirts reflected too much light. (incidentally, this is why the “good guys” in westerns wore white hats. Light reflecting down from the white brim let you see the actor’s face better while wearing the hat. “Bad guys” were largely disposable in early westerns and nobody cared if you saw their faces, so they got black hats.) White shirts caused glares under the bright studio lights, so they resurrected the “white shirt ’cause I’m a gentleman, blue collar ’cause of my job” trope. This is also where the popularity of lightly tinted or striped men’s shirts came from, people mimicking what they saw on television. The actors would prefer the “high class” white shirt, but were stuck with less reflective colors. Viewers saw people on TV wear blue or yellow or pin-striped shirts and wanted them too.
And there you have it, 150 years of men’s fashion explained alongside the explanation for “What is a blue collar job?” As for these days, well, “blue collar” is still the middle class, those between the “white collar” executives and the “work clothes” laborers. The people who dress in suits but can’t afford more than two of them, they’re “blue collar.”
Edit: I’ve never heard of “red collar” but the term “redshirt” pops up in random places. It means expendable, it’s a Star Trek reference.
White Collar – office professional who is expected to wear a suit to work each day. (or in today’s world a button shirt and probably a tie)
Blue Collar – skilled laborer like a mechanic or factory worker. Typically somebody who is required to wear a uniform to work but who’s clothes need to also be very durable.
Red Neck – unskilled laborer. Leathery, sunburnt necks from working out in the sun either shirtless or with an unbuttoned/loose shirt.
For more info: [Wikipedia has your back.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designation_of_workers_by_collar_color#:~:text=White%20collar,-Main%20article%3A%20White&text=The%20term%20%22white%2Dcollar%20worker,managerial%20functions%20during%20the%201930s.)
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