Style iconism is difficult to achieve nowadays partly because the mission for most men has changed. Back then, most men wanted to be perceived as gentlemen. In the 50s, men added the cowboy and rebel. In the sixties/seventies, the rock star, lounge lizard, sex object look was added, then the designer, then the waif or eternally young anorexic. Today, men want to be a gentleman again but there aren't enough examples. Television doesn't reward good manners and form, instead it rewards extreme emotional instability and some sort of macho, blue collar physical feats. Even the beer commercial speaks of losing your man card or pointing out unmanly things someone did. The mere concept that a man can lose his manhood at any given moment is in itself emasculating.

Then style itself is a fragile concept. Does anyone remember when way back Alan Flusser had a talk with that Ask Andy person? Apparently, FLusser said one could wear a jacket and tie with a short sleeved shirt. Well, there was an uproar that "Alan Bleepin Flusser", of all people, could utter such sacrilege. Everyone knows that short sleeved shirts with ties are a sign that you are both lower class and do not know better. Poor FLusser got ripped to shreds for that. What is interesting is that neither side was wrong. FLusser wasn't wrong because, if you are wearing a very nice short sleeved short with a jacket and need to run into a nice meeting or restaurant, you can add a bow or necktie and look very nice. I dont know that it is an every day business look but in a pinch, it can indeed be done stylishly.

It occurs to me that the bright line panic over this was caused because those who are clueless about style and need absolute rules. It also tells me that these men do not understand the difference between doing something well and badly. Perhaps they remember the cheap 3 for $15 short sleeved shirts worn by men they grew up around, rather than a beautiful model made up by a custom shirt maker. Perhaps they live in fear of being revealed as low or "not knowing better". Whatever the reason was, that mob of angry forumites were per se removing themselves from the possibility of stylish dressing by reacting without consideration of time, place or manner in which something sartorial is done. In my mind, if something looks nice and has the desired effect, then do it, even if it has never been done before.

^That bloody suit in NNW has become a kind of i-gent totem and - that WAS fairly mediocre!

Go on then let rip over the The Little Dook; The Rake (a very dubious soubriquet - 'Buccaneer' even 'Brigand' is much better), and Niven. Today I am fixed up with a Brazilian- American- British-Italian-Indian lunch so will contribute today late, if at all. Apparently, we are having fish.