During the summertime in the warm climate we live in I often find myself wishing for the return of the paper collar. What better way to deal with ring around the collar than to just throw out the old collar and put on a new one? I have a theory (unproven, admittedly) that using paper collars would have less environmental impact than all the water and detergents we use to scrub out ring around the collar. Of course, the best solution would be to adopt collarless shirts. The folkloric apparel in hot climates tends towards white and collarless or, at least, short collars. Until dashikis make a comeback I predict we’ll see the same paper collar trend that hit the Victorians:

It is hardly twenty-five years since the advent of the paper collar. Prior to that time the average man wore neck-gear made from linen fabric, or was content to go without collars, except on Sundays and legal holidays. Then the collar was frequently built in with the shirt and worn with a loose, limp and decidedly comfortable manner. The mechanic going to his daily work despised collars altogether, and in order to see an aggregation of white linen, stiffly starched and held about the neck with satin stocks, it was necessary to attend church or go abroad at a Fourth of July celebration, Then it was that some genius discovered that there was nothing like paper, and produced that useful, convenient and always done up article the paper collar. It struck the popular fancy the paper collar did-as a cyclone strikes a Western hamlet, carrying everything before it, and so complete a revolution of gentlemen’s toilet was never before effected in so short a time. Everybody, or pretty much everybody, appeared out in clean paper collars. Their advantage over any other collar was apparent. They never needed the careful attention of the washer-woman, and after one had been worn until it was in a state of dilapidation, another, bright, clean, folded without a wrinkle, was ready in the box to take its place. The banker if he was not too old-fogyish, wore paper collars; the business man, the society man, the workingman, even the dudes of those days wore paper collars.

-Taken from Manufacturer and Builder December 1886

A note from the Mrs.: This post is a good indication of the lengths Erik will go to avoid laundry.