Dear Word Detective: I ran into an old high school chum recently and was flattered when he said what he remembered from the old days was that I was always neatly dressed: “In fact, you always looked as though you had just stepped from a band box.” I think I knew what he meant but I wondered where that expression came from. I have heard it many times so I know he didn’t just make it up. — John D. Wilson.
Well, you’re ahead of me. I had never heard that expression before I received your question. Nevertheless, my mind, which tends to wander off if not watched closely, immediately concocted its own explanation. It seemed logical that the “band box” in question might be one of those gazebo-like park bandstands one sees in idealized Hollywood renditions of small town life in the 19th and early 20th century. Assuming those movies are accurate (which is, granted, akin to assuming that “King Kong” was a documentary), the bands performing in the “band box” were always neatly dressed in matching striped seersucker blazers and straw boater hats, making them a handy standard of neatness in dress.
Nice theory, isn’t it? Too bad it has nothing to do with the actual origin of “to look as if one came out of a bandbox,” which has meant “to appear very neat and fashionable” since the early 19th century.
The “bandbox” in the phrase is not a gazebo, but what today we would probably call a “hat box,” a thin-walled circular cardboard box used for the storage of delicate hats. The term “bandbox” itself actually dates back to the early 17th century, and the “band” in the word is neither a musical group nor the band often found on today’s hats. At that time, a standard article of fancy dress for both men and women was a “ruff” or elaborately ruffled collar (see here for pictures of ruffs), also called a “band” and often stiffly starched and up to a foot in diameter. The “bandbox” was invented to store these delicate “bands,” and later used, as fashion changed, to protect equally delicate hats, celluloid collars, and the like. Thus, to say that someone “looks as if he just stepped from a bandbox” means that he is dressed as if his clothes were fashionable and meticulously neat, and, by extension, that he is quite a dapper fellow.
I came across a very modern usage of the word bandbox a few years ago when working on a new air traffic control system for the UK, though I suspect it was imported from the US.
During the day each sector of airspace is managed by a team of two controllers and an assistant. At night, when the volume of air traffic is much lower, a small number of teams take on several sectors each thus reducing the staffing level through the night. This process of folding several sectors into the care of one team is known as ‘bandboxing’.
That’s all very well, but what do air traffic controllers wear when they’re bandboxing? If bandboxing lasts through the night, then how do they choose between dinner jacket and morning dress?
I recently heard the word “bandbox” in reference to what I deduced was some sort of musical device. It was in a commercial for an old restaurant in Akron, OH, and the announcer said something like “…featuring one of the only bandboxes left in the country. Just put your money in, and it opens up. It’s right above the main entrance.” What in the hell was he talking about????