they dont mention a "stand" collar , they mention the button down snaps though.
I posted the picture of the A2 collar for refference, I would geuss maybe a stand up collar could help protect the pilot's neck area from a fire hazard? or help keep the wind out if he was flying with an open cock pit?
The 'collar stand' is just the same as on a dress shirt- since the A-2 is cut as a shirt(rather than a typical outer garment...), some of the earlier ones included this for a snappier style...
It's the bit where your tie fits on a dress shirt- the 3/4"-ish band between the neck opening and the actual collar. I don't like them on A-2s actually.
Heres a photo of a collar stand that John Chapman took. Most early A-2s had them. Most makers swithed over to the simple collar attachment on their later jackets.
There's no stand, and the leather is very soft and floppy. I like to wear the collar up but it just flops anyway. Would a collar stand help the collar stand up? I thought that was the purpose - to allow the collar to be worn up and thus the wind kept out.
My A-2's only a few years old, doesn't have the extra leather, but stays up just fine. I'm taking it St. Louis tomorrow for a cold week and will probably be testing this feature in the coming days.
Theoretically, the collar sat a little higher on the jacket with the stand. This only made any difference when it was new; before too long the collar had relaxed and sat at about the same place as the collar standless A-2's. The nebulous worth of the stand and the extra effort is, I'm sure, why most manufacturers did away with the stand over time.
I think they did it to prevent the collar from "sagging" to help keep the collar up and giving the uniform a crisper sharper appearance, especially when worn with a shirt and tie, so the collar wont sag and look sloppy with a shirt collar worn underneath.
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