Yet eventually there comes the crick in the neck. The dryness in the eyes. The discomfort in the lower back.

One must bow one's head once again, returning to the dust of our own meager planet. And when the gaze does drop, oh how one's thoughts do plunge with it towards the base and immoral.

The corrected collar, then, is a tremendous gain in heaven-seeking. By manipulating the collarbone—composed of the right and left clavicle (from Latin, clavicula, "little key"), which act as struts between the scapula and the shoulders, allowing the shoulders to rotate freely—the collar may be shaped and molded into finger-like supports for the chin, pointing the head upwards, rectifying that deficiency of gaze, and allowing one to live at ease in permanent, star-struck awe.

The three stages of shapening were the Moon Phase, where the trapezius on either side resembled two small hills; the Sun Phase, where the trapezius lost their arcs and were two raised thumbs; and finally the God Phase, where the thumbs became index fingers, finally propping up the chin. The only decoration was a sliver of silver, shaped like the head of a teaspoon, and mounted to the tips of the trapezius. These caps were applied when the manipulation was complete, a blush of chrome signifying one's union to the stars.

The Maxima was all the rage, and spurred any number of competing imitations. Some would add pressure clips to the clavicles, so that as they grew upward, so were they also flattened. Thus, when the final touches of the fringe clips were added, the wavy lips of The Maxima grew almost together, creating a second mouth just below the chin.

The Tudors began to wear the collarbone as a Ruff. After the God Phase was complete, a small gold ring was placed just below the tips of the trapezius. Before going to bed, the child inserted a small key, lacelike in its delicacy, into the ring, and when the key was turned, the ring contracted by miniscule increments. Over time, the points of the finger were constricted into small bulbs; these could then be manipulated with pinching, pressure and fringe clips, so that, in the end, the bulbs were flattened, increasing their diameter to three or four inches, and ribboned along the edges. The results were two lovely, nearly translucent flowers, within which the child's head was cupped.

The Regents created tall Prayer Collars, shaped like two hands meeting in supplication below the chin, with embroidery on either side. Consider the striking image of George IV, Prince Regent, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. His collar is the very excess of the aristocracy, a regal turtle's neck outfitted in black. To effect this collar, Regents punched miniscule holes in the collarbone with a bone-awl. Steel wire was strung through these eyelets, and the wire was suspended from the mouths of two steel rings hung on either side of their bedchambers. The Regents suspended themselves on the wire nightly for a period of eight to twelve months. A bone embroiderer was then hired to add finishing touches. Often short prayers were inscribed on the collars, a mark of praise, or a nod towards wonder.

Though the styles varied, the collar was almost universally worn in the stark white of naturally exposed bone, which was evidence that the collar was a holy thing.

During the years when populist revolution swept across Europe, the whiteness of the collar, that refined aspect of beauty and virtue, did not escape attention as an indicator of wealth and class—where one's daily activities might normally preclude the minutiae of washing a collar, one's ability to keep the collar white also indicated that one could afford to have such minutiae attended to. Even when collar machinery became cheaper and more effective, and the lower classes could afford small alterations—styles such as the South London Stump, the American Gas, and the Four-leaf Clover—these collars were rarely of the same bone china white that the aristocracy could profess.

All of this changed, however, with a quick and decisive (some might say impetuous) action by Hannah Lord Montague, resident of Troy, New York, and long-suffering wife.

Hannah's husband, Orlando Montague, was a middle-class merchant, whose fastidiousness for a stark white collar put his wife to great pains to keep his collar clean. Hannah was known to go about the streets of Troy muttering about the difficulties of keeping house, and the absurdity of adding the washing of Mr. Montague's collar to her daily chores. One day, when Orlando was particularly demanding and in a great hurry, Hannah balked at his demands: "You want a clean, white collar?" she said. "Here!" And she took a large pair of shears from the table, snipped easily through the tender bone of Orlando's collar, removed it from his neck, washed it in the laundry tub, and riveted it back onto his sternum, all within a very short time, and all to the astonishment of Orlando, who never said a word.

Stunned, Orlando wandered out into the street where the crowds quickly noticed the bolted-on collar. They were said to point and whisper as Orlando awkwardly made his way to his scheduled meeting. This proved fortuitous, however, as Orlando was to meet with the Reverend Ebenezer Brown, a businessman with great entrepreneurial spirit. Brown immediately recognized, in the hastily re-attached collar, an advent of historical proportions. Not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, Brown convinced the still stony-faced Orlando to patent and commercialize the process.

One must be careful in the state of removal, of course, as the shoulders will no longer freely rotate. The soft tissues of the neck and chest are also somewhat unprotected. However, one may purchase a chest plate, which can be easily fastened over the exposed area. There are, as yet, no solutions for limited mobility.

Perhaps the greatest result of the synthetic collar was that the limits of aristocratic stylings were no longer out of reach. In fact, synthetic collars offered the opportunity for elaboration to an extent once thought impossible. Collars like spun silk; collars that jutted at angles derived from Euclidean Geometry; collars that swooped and curved like the flights of swallows—not only did the collar truly become a work of art, but to a certain extent, class distinction vanished over night.

There were those, however, who argued against Detachable collars, saying that they were unsanitary, or possibly dangerous.

Misunderstanding of it has arisen from a misapprehension of its scientific function, which is that of revealer of dirt.