A Little Accessories Quiz

Let’s try a little test. Which of the following accessories would you prefer if you had to pick one of each?

Watch:

a) Rose-gold Cartier with roman numerals, round face, metal strap
b) Steel Audemars Piguet with no numbers, octagonal face, metal strap
c) Black Bell & Ross with four numbers, square face, plastic strap
d) Silver Patek Philippe with roman numerals, round face, brown leather strap

Scarf:
a) Dark brown, silk graphic on one side, wool on the other
b) Grey cashmere with white pinstripe
c) Black lambswool with white dot
d) Pale grey cashmere with brown reverse

Gloves:
a) Dark brown leather with black crocodile detail
b) Black leather driving gloves
c) Yellow leather with cashmere lining
d) Brown suede with leather edging

Random other:
a) Aviator sunglasses with brown leather bridge
b) Silver and black jade signet ring
c) Gold cigarette lighter
d) Red calf-leather passport holder

Now think carefully. Pick one from each category. I find the choices are rather revealing of the person you want to be as you get dressed.

According to one magazine (with a few added touches from me) all the a) should go together, all the b) together and so on. Which is pretty much spot on for my aspirations – I pick d) every time, except for the random others, where I hesitate between a) and d). I’ve always preferred brown leather to black, silver to gold and liked pale grey wool.

The fact that the magazine got it right demonstrates the art of combining these aspirational shots and combinations. It’s the same with window dressing – Church’s shoes recently began a new campaign in its windows where it combines a pair of shoes with its new lines in socks, ties and scarves.

I was taken by the tan brogues, dark brown scarf and wool tie in a mid-blue with club stripe. But you may be more of a black derby/grey scarf/black knitted silk kind-of-guy. Have a look next time you walk past the store – there’s one in New York and if the branding manager is worth his salt it will have the same window dressing as London (and Hong Kong, Tokyo etc.).

Another way to pick out the accessories that define you is to consider it next time you pack for a trip. Glance at the watch, scarf, gloves, shoes and ties lying on your bed, waiting to be packed. See what message they send out.

As a final word on the subject, I need to mention Bergdorf Goodman window dressing, which never fails to capture my attention every time I walk past. Again, the combinations of the particular window that stops you in your tracks will probably be quite revealing. My favourite is shown opposite. I’ll leave you to decide what it says about me.

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Enjoy Your Fashion Cycle

Everyone knows fashion is cyclical. But the key to understanding its enduring appeal is that people don’t live through that many cycles.

Slim trousers have been in the ascendancy in men’s fashion for almost a decade now. From their first daring suggestion on the catwalk, through gradual acceptance as the norm in high-end tailoring, to the point now where it is hard to find anything other than straight or skinny jeans in high-street stores.

This is the end point: as soon as your mate Dave (who knows as much about fashion as he does about French literature – Beckham and the three musketeers is about it) is wearing narrow jeans, the trend is finished. The high street is saturated and the designers are searching for something new.

That was the cycle. The next cycle will see a different shape dominate – bootcut is the current favourite. But because the cycle is so long, it could last the whole of your twenties. You will identify slim trousers with your youth, and bootcut will seem like a breath of fresh air – a more mature, flattering shape. It will seem like an original trend since, even though it was popular in the past, you weren’t around to wear it.

The same would be true of baggy jeans or flairs. They may not be original, but that hardly matters. You didn’t get to wear them before.

You really only get two of these cycles, possibly three. By the time you are into your thirties, you may stop noticing anything about trends or fashion. And even if you end up wearing the dominant shape of the times (by default, like Dave), you will hardly notice. You may even keep the same pair of jeans for decades – many men do.

In my teenage years, bootcut jeans were probably the most fashionable. Hip-hop baggy jeans also had a slightly embarrassing following among white, middle-class kids. For me, therefore, the past decade and its narrow trouser aesthetic has seemed like a maturing time – one where straight, slim trousers with suits seemed like the obvious choice. The seemed timeless. Surely they are simply a realisation every man comes to after the follies of youth?

In another five years I will probably be proved wrong. But by then I won’t care. Because baby carriers and combination boilers will be taking up much of my retail time; but also because I will have formed this attachment to slim, straight trousers at a formative age – one where I had a certain amount of time and disposal income to spend on clothes. It will probably be ingrained in me forever by then.

So don’t criticise fashion cycles for being unoriginal. You only get two or three – enjoy them while they last.

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The Italian Background

The generalisation that the English experiment with their shirts and the Italians with their jackets broadly holds, particularly in business wear. While the English tradition of checked and plaid wools is a fine one, it was always largely restricted to the country (or at least the weekend) and has died out slowly as fewer English men wore suits casually.

The Italians are more willing to experiment with suit cloth at every occasion. This necessitates a shirt and tie combination that makes no attempt to compete with that cloth – the Italian Background.

The Italian Background is simple: a plain blue or black tie on a plain blue shirt. (Occasionally the shirt will be white, but this can look a little funereal.)

The combination works well because a blue shirt suits most people more than white, and it fades more into the background; because a dark tie fades more into the background than a pale tie; and because the dark blue tie is the most similar in tone and harmonious combination with a blue shirt – without being too similar and evoking tone on tone.

But this is analysing the obvious. It works as the plainest and yet most sophisticated of supports to an otherwise daring suit pattern – or indeed odd jacket. It equally supports an adventurous pocket-handkerchief, gloves, hat or jacket. When trying to balance an outfit, the Italian would much rather tone down a tie than go without one.

Four examples are displayed here, all courtesy of The Sartorialist. The first is possibly the most extreme. The high contrast, double-breasted jacket stands out, but is supported effectively by an Italian Background and dark trousers. It even makes it possible to add a pointed handkerchief without appearing over the top.

The second example marries an Italian Background with a hat and bright coat, while number three includes a faintly ridiculous coat that needs all the help it can get. Notice the uniformity of dress in this second combination as well – with odd double-breasted jacket and spread collar. While this may be because they are both associated with the same clothing outlet, it shows the versatility of the Background.

Example number four brings out a particular aspect of the Background – its fruitful combination with beige or tan (yellow, essentially). It is no coincidence that every one of these pictures involves a jacket in some shade of tan. And the gentleman on the left in this example shows that the Background is the best choice for what could otherwise be a very hard suit to find combinations for.

If in doubt, go for the Italian Background. (Oh, and buy yourself a nice, plain blue tie.)

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Another Fashion Magazine

In my quest to find a men’s style magazine that caters to me (and, I think, some readers of this blog) I occasionally try one of the high-end fashion magazines to see what it has to offer.

This month, I tried Another Man.

It certainly differentiates itself from the lad’s mags of this area, such as GQ, Arena, Esquire, by its intellectual aspirations. The main body of photo shoots is interspersed with extracts from several historical manifestos – the surrealists (“psychic automation in its pure state”) to Dadaists (“say yes, say no”), futurists (“rebel against the tyranny of words”) to Dogme 95 (“I am no longer an artist”). But there seems to be no attempt to link these manifestos, interesting as they are, to the shoots. Each is not a theme; it is instead, one is tempted to say, a pretension.

The commissioned writing has a similar bent. While some of this is superb – in particular Jon Savage on the Zazous and Philip K Dick on how to write science fiction – it is a handful of pages and the journalist copy is rather unoriginal and unconnected. You can’t help feeling the Nick Cave interview would be better written by someone at Mojo. And the short description of a band averaging 16 years in age that disparages anyone that can play an instrument is bizarre.

But Another Man inevitably falls down more on its fashion coverage more than anything else. While it doesn’t necessarily describe itself as a fashion magazine, it does dedicate well over half the magazine the fashion shoots and advertising – so it is here you would expect it to deliver.

Instead, there are spreads showing men with plastic rings, a glass sculpture and a Christmas decoration on their heads. Most have one piece of actual clothing on, though this may be a wool blazer worn as a skirt (not sure this is what Kenzo intended) or an oversized jumper (a rather kind description for a potato sack that goes over the head and reaches to the knees, with an alarming cartoon face painted on the front and a red grille to look through).

This is not to say that there is nothing worthwhile in here. One shoot takes students and artists in King’s Cross and Shoreditch and has some wonderful combinations of bohemian yet understated clothes. But it is 16 pages out of 320. And where’s the fashion/style editorial? A one page interview with Paul Smith. Two sparse spreads about how artists want to be in fashion and vice versa.

I presume there are many people out there for whom Another Man is the perfect magazine. But it is certainly not serious about fashion, let alone style.

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Two Tips on Ties

Here are a couple of tried and tested tips for tying ties. Apologies for the excessive alliteration.

I’m a fan of a nice, large dimple in a tie. Two reasons: I think it adds a certain lustre to the silk to be pulled in thus, and the added tension helps keep the tie in place, taut and a little pushed out.

I’m sure most are familiar with how, basically, to achieve a dimple (if not, please inform me in the comments section and I’ll do my best to describe it). However, I always found difficulty in achieving a consistent dimple in the middle of the tie. It would always verge over the one side and eventually, as a result, disappear. I also found that a decent dimple in the early stages of tying would seem to disappear in a similar way by the time it was tightened up to the collar.

So, two tips. First, lay out your tie on a flat, hard surface and estimate the two or three inches that pass through the knot during tying (perhaps hold it up to your body to discover this). Then, fold the tie along these two or three inches in half, with the front of the tie on the inside. Press gently along the fold with your fingers, or leave a heavy object on it briefly.

When you pick the tie back up again, there will be a visible fold down the blade. That will fade after a short while, but the lining of tie retains the fold. Because it is often a thinner silk or a canvas, it is more easily distorted. So when you next pull the tie taut, it will naturally return to that halfway fold, creating a perfectly placed dimple. The effect is also reinforced over time – the more a tie is tied with that dimple, the more easily it will return to it.

Second tip: always secure the knot and its dimple completely before pulling on the thinner blade to bring it up to the collar. Otherwise the dimple is likely to be loosened on the way up.

When you have pulled the wider blade under, over and down through the knot, let it hang for a second to pinch it ready to create the dimple. Then tighten the knot by pulling both the wider blade and the knot downwards – it is slightly counter intuitive to pull the knot down, as it will eventually go up again, but pulling it down thus will tighten it far better for the journey up to the collar.

One more tip, even though it does bring the total to three and spoil the alliteration: if your knot is a little too thin for your liking, try looping the wider blade over once more (in a four-in-hand knot this is) than usual. It makes less difference than you’d think, but just enough to satisfy.

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