How to Dress in the Foreign Office

Continuing the theme of dressing as costume, the constraints of one’s job can often make one into a stereotype, especially if one works in the more traditional industries or political offices of older institutions.

A lovely example is found in the autobiography by Donald Hawley, a long-standing member of the British Foreign Office who was Head of Chancery in Cairo during the Nasser epoch and in Lagos when Nigeria fell apart following the coup in 1966.

While discussing the messengers that channelled information from one department to another, (one character called Archie was “not only a wholesale purveyor of unsolicited information on when Chelsea would play at home but also apt to reduce girls momentarily to tears by a bizarre proposal of marriage”) he lays out the requirements of dress in the Foreign Office:

“Dress was formal and the majority of men wore pinstripe trousers and black jackets rather than dark suits, though both were permissible. Everyone wore a stiff collar and outdoors a bowler or Homburg hat and rolled umbrella were de rigueur.” It’s easy to see how the foreigner’s stereotype of the smart, conservative Englishman was built up isn’t it? In fact, the impact of that stereotype is explained in the next sentence:

“I always wore a bowler until 1975 when an American in St James’s Park asked me as a ‘real Englishman’ [as if there were lots of impostors walking around trying to fool tourists!] to pose for a photograph. Balking at becoming a tourist attraction I gave it up.”

The same paragraph gives some correction to the style historians that claim differing parts of the same outfit would never be worn together:

“Half the staff of every department worked on Saturday mornings but everyone wore a country suit on that day of the week. Wearing this and a bowler hat we looked like Army officers and were often saluted smartly by confused sentries if we happened to walk through the Horse Guards Arch [being the entrance to the Horse Guards building close to Buckingham Palace, where the Household Cavalry amongst other are housed].”

So while you might be mistaken for an officer by parading around in your tweed suit and bowler hat, it certainly wasn’t considered bad form to accompany it with a bowler hat, even in the tradition-riddled Foreign Office. Style isn’t ever as constricted as students of it believe. The rules are never quite as simple as one thinks.

The English Suit

Many moons ago in the late autumn glow of October, I wrote, at length, of suits. Readers that recall my musings might have noticed that, though I paid small reference to the English suit, my focus was on the alternatives; the Continental, the Gangster and the Italian. Any at-length discussion of the English style was intentionally avoided as I believed, and still do, that the English rather overdo it when it comes to blowing their own sartorial trumpets.

Therefore, I conspicuously avoided ‘the English style’; it was the moment for xenophilia, for diplomatic acknowledgment and cultural appreciation. However, I had always intended to celebrate both the English style and the very Englishness of wearing a suit in the first place. And this celebration had to occur separate from the appreciation of other suiting styles to avoid implicative competition and what might have been seen as sartorial jingoism. For though I believe that too few Englishmen dress to the standard of our boasts, the daring and the individuality of an Englishman in an English suit can intimidating.

In contemporary London, the English suit is rarely seen. This may sound bizarre and paradoxical but it is purely a reflection of how the suit itself has evolved and how the English tastes have changed.

For when I refer to the English suit, I do not mean merely a suit purchased at a gent’s outfitter; nor do I necessarily refer to grand threads from Savile Row. A suit’s ‘Englishness’ to me has a great, great deal to do with choice of material, colour and pattern and character.

The typical lawyer will march down Chancery Lane in an Italo-English bastardization; for many of the suits I see are the product of an ill considered pairing of these two great ‘schools’ of suit; Italian weights of cloth dazzle uncomfortably in pinstripes. However, for the most part, this is as English as you will see in central London. Aside from the habitats of St James’ and Mayfair where you are very likely to see, if you wait long enough, the true English suit in all its glory, London is sartorially breathtakingly cosmopolitan. However, to celebrate is not to wallow in demise and dilution. And as an Englishman, I am too awfully fond of purity; the ‘pure breed’ English suit, though rare, is as heart-warming as a gill of gin.

A chequered past  

Perhaps it is the timeless and charming Georgian sash window, or the tartan traditions of our Scottish cousins that has inspired, but checking a suit has long appealed to the English.

Author Nick Foulkes, pictured above (bottom, left) sports an unusual but very English check suit. The strength and the size of the check are particularly distinctive and this is sometimes referred to as ‘a window check.’ Edward VIII, or the Duke of Windsor as he came to be called after his abdication, is also wearing this check (top, left) although he was more famous for wearing the Prince of Wales check of which the current incumbent of that title, Charles, is so fond.

Checked suits, though often worn in the country, are rarely seen in town. The colour matched socks, shirt and pocket square, demonstrated by Foulkes, are the only accessorising required. Choosing as subtle a shirt and tie as possible is recommended; the suit itself will always be the talking point.

The little bit of England

The story of England is proof in itself that something small need not necessarily be insignificant or ineffective. Though I greatly admire Charles’ suit (bottom, right); again, a very English affectation of wearing double breasted suits, it is the small things about his ensemble that make me think of green hills, dreaming spires, Cornish cream and the sound of leather ‘gainst wood.

The Bengal stripe shirt, with the spread collar, the sober tie with the small knot and the casually inserted and, (please note) patterned pocket square are rarely seen on the continent. Italians generally prefer ironed linen for pocket squares and, unless they are conspicuously Anglophilic, usually wear plain white. Similarly, large knots are popular with gentleman who dress in the Italian mode – completely at odds with the Lilliputian creations of Charles and other men who pace along Pall Mall.

The buttonhole is particularly English. When I have worn them on the continent I receive either knowing nods of sympathy or furtive untrusting stares; sadly they are seen infrequently although a well made one, as Oscar Wilde said, ‘is the only link between Art and nature.’ Overall the additions are not excessive or cluttered. Though buttonholes and pocket squares are considered to be the clothing equivalent of Victoriana, they actually create a gentle balance – something breaking the monotony of the suit fabric.

With Charles there is a subtly muted starchiness; the hard collar and ruthlessly secured tie are the modern equivalent of Beerbohm’s high winged collar and pinned tie. Though it might be unfairly referred to as a ‘stiffness’ by contemporary society, in my opinion it retains the correct level of formality and finish. This particular ‘Englishness’ is as old as the hills. Never frightened of, or strangers to progress, the English, generally speaking, still like to maintain a level of dignity that, ironically, actually makes them feel more comfortable.

Where Style Becomes Costume

Dressing in the full traditions of men’s clothing can make one a caricature. It must be combined with a touch of originality.

There are blogs on men’s style that are fascinating for the depth of knowledge they demonstrate – over the role of a split yoke on a man’s shirt, over the line of a shoe’s waist. They inform many things about what I buy and what I wear. But I am often a little disappointed when I see images of the authors.

This is because they seem to want to be an embodiment of what is – necessarily – historical dress, and become an illustration from an old copy of Esquire. They take every aspect of, for example, early twentieth century English country wear, and they copy it. They wear the cord trousers, the tweed jacket, the checked shirt and the wool tie. They add the flat cap, the brogues and the bright socks. They may add a hunting jacket with leather padding on the shoulder to protect from the impact of a gun’s recoil, or a waxed Barbour jacket with bellow pockets to accommodate shells.

These items are all correct, historically. And the chances are they will be of the highest quality, complement the wearer’s skin tones and fit him perfectly – as he takes great care over these elements as well. But it is just mimicry. He is in costume.

Even Prince Charles, on a hunt around Balmoral, doesn’t follow the traditions of hunt clothing this fastidiously. And he has an excuse for wearing something similar – he is actually hunting, he is actually English and all his forbears wore similar pieces throughout their history.

The style aficionado who copies it is just dressing up. He has none of the creative element that can make dressing so enjoyable, and so personal.

Let me give an officewear example. I like wearing pinstripe suits. I’m a fan of red socks, as well as double-breasted jackets and patterned handkerchiefs. But I know that if I wore all of these pieces in one combination I would look like a caricature. I might as well top it off with a bowler hat, grow a moustache and wander down Fleet Street twirling my umbrella.

So I wear red socks with more understated suits. Perhaps a plan grey flannel and open-necked white shirt. I rarely wear a handkerchief and a tie at the same time, as for me it is probably a little too much. And my double-breasted suits are not navy-blue pinstripe.

It is also fun to add touches of individuality – to experiment with odd waistcoats in formal suits, though there is no tradition of this that I am aware of; to combine smart clean Converse with wool suits, as I like the contrast of smart and casual; to wear darker coloured, wool handkerchiefs in odd jackets when worn casually. This is individuality and creativity. It is what makes dressing fun, rather than study.

I think that men who are very interested in their clothes are part geeky, petty academic and part creative, artistic aesthete. Everyone needs the former to drive them into reading and investigation, to be interested by the history and traditions of men’s attire. But everyone also needs the latter, to have the kind of mind that created these traditions in the first place. (Beau Brummel and the Duke of Windsor are heroes for being precisely the opposite of these geeky facsimiles.)

Unfortunately, when men have too much of the first influence and not enough of the second, they end up looking like an extra in a costume drama.

The Great Bottom Button Mystery

Ooo, there’s another one! A perfectly respectable businessman with only the bottom button of his three-button jacket done up. Just the one. Leaving the rest of the jacket flapping open.

It looks so bizarre. It creates an artificial, rippling belly of negative space, and as result is surely the least flattering way to possibly do up the buttons of a suit. Why on earth do they do it?

At first, I thought it was an aberration. One man walking towards me, his pinstripe ruined by a frankly odd buttoning. I briefly wondered why he had decided to do up just that button, and not the natural waist button, the middle button. Briefly I considered it, and then dismissed it – a mistake, an accident, certainly an exception.

Then a few days later it happened again. Someone else striding purposefully along Fleet Street, briefcase in hand, importantly talking into his mobile phone. With only the bottom button done up. This time the buttoning was so low that his tie had flapped over the fastening, like a bright dead fish.

Why? Don’t you see it when you look in the mirror? Doesn’t it strike you as odd, like doing up the top button of your shirt, and no others? Doesn’t the oddity of the effect suggest that the suit was not designed to do that?

As more examples popped up, I began to give the phenomenon serious thought. Why did you never see men with just the top button fastened? There were always a few with the top and the middle, or the middle and the bottom, but the waist button was always firmly secured.

Did the bottom-fasteners somehow feel that this arrangement gave them a deeper V, a plunging, masculine chest? They could be forgiven for thinking that (though still wrong) if the suit had a natural, soft roll. But modern, worsted business suits are true three buttons – the fastening is stiff and, unlike the flannels of old, there is little natural roll. So the artificial belly is the result.

Finally, a combination of curiosity and anger got the better of me and I asked someone. Embarassing, I know. But it was beginning to dominate every waking thought.

The gentleman in question was puzzled, then a little miffed, perhaps a tad embarrassed. He said he did it because it felt like a natural fit for the jacket, it felt snug. And there’s the rub: the jacket was too big for him, so it didn’t feel like it fitted with the waist button done up. The bottom button on its own felt better.

I’ve since found that some men go for the same odd buttoning if the jacket is too small for their belly – the cut of a jacket can mean that the bottom button fits when the middle doesn’t. It all depends on cut and on physique.

Of course, they’re all wrong. It looks silly and it ignores how the jacket was designed to be worn. Any man who wears his jacket buttoned in this way should be told to have it altered.
Fortunately, I have so far resisted the urge to tell any of them this.

The Double-Breasted Debate

I was always told that a double-breasted suit created breadth. Good for tall, narrow men. Not so good for the short and stout. This belief, though widely held by others, probably originates for me with the insistence of my mother that I would look lovely with a double breast, given that I am tall and could always be broader.

Funny how many opinions of oneself originate with such memories of youth. There’s probably a good case to be made that all one’s fundamental impressions of strength and weakness are formed at that age. When one is more insecure, more vulnerable. I’ve never liked my legs either.

But I digress. The traditional view is that double-breasted makes one broader. Alan Flusser disagrees: he contends that the swooping lapels of a double-breasted jacket, from the tip of a peaked lapel down to two crossed points at the waist, create the illusion of height. This illusion, he argues, more than compensates for the impression of breadth achieved elsewhere.

I can see the sense in his argument, but instinctively disagree. I knew he was wrong, but didn’t know why.

Now I do. Flusser is not wrong in his analysis, just in his conclusion. The answer is spelled out in The Suit by Nicholas Antongiavanni. His chapter Of Diminutive Men agrees that the sweeping lapel of a double-breasted jacket creates height. The double row of buttons and the extra flap of cloth, however, create breadth. Most would argue that the second set of features outweighs the first. But to a certain extent that is a subjective question.

More importantly, there is a solution for the diminutive man. If he wears a single-breasted suit with a low fastening (perhaps even a single button on the waist as preferred by some Savile Row tailors) and peaked lapels, he can achieve some of the slimming effects of a double-breasted jacket. This look, Antongiavanni argues, is rakish. It is unusual and slimming without the conservative or perhaps boxy appearance of the normal double-breasted.

The other solution is to go for a double-breasted suit with just two buttons, as was the model I had made in Hong Kong recently. While I have seen this design around occasionally over the years, it was most recently in the spotlight in Dunhill’s spring/summer campaign. Here a two-button double-breasted suit was used as a separate jacket with dark jeans and dark-brown derbys (not sure I quite agree with this look – a double-breasted looking rather out of place as an odd jacket – but it did seem to work on the fellow in the advert) and as a modern twist on a white linen suit worn by Jude Law.

Getting rid of the double row of buttons helps avoid the boxy look wonderfully. There is, obviously, now a single horizontal line across one’s waist, but it is at least a slim line. It all helps accentuate my breadth and ease those youthful insecurities.