Awesome.

Welcome to London!

There is a class element here too (of course). 'The rules' are middle class wannabe indicators. They always were over here.

There's an old expression that it's always Sunday afternoon on the Brompton Road (or something like that) meaning that the dreary middle class you see around Brompton Road are always in their boring 'Sunday best' whilst in Belgravia yer real Gents are rocking their wardrobes any way they choose. And why shouldn't they? They don't have to worry about losing their job at the bank...

Equally the working class just like the upper class had more freedom too.

It's a nice point which the writers of encyclopedias of how to dress often miss out: To dress according to 'the rules' is to dress like a drone, a dullard, a pretentious pleb. Which is how the rest of the world will see you even if you don't see it yourself.

J.

Last edited by Sator (2008-05-26 20:31:01)

Sator, your points are well taken, but my proposition here is that brown was not alien in town, and these brown "town suits" were sufficiently commonplace that their color was not remarked upon.  There is a clear inference that in the post-war era brown suits were acceptable in town.  I speculate that they were less acceptible in "the city", and in parliament, court rooms and so on.  Clearly, however, brown suits were acceptable wear not only in the country.

Brown in town? But the rules, the rules...

Nemesis, when you are done mining your source for those photos please pass it on to the rest of us.

I must confess that my admiration is all for Albert. It is his legacy of serious minded (Germanic actually) hard work for his adopted country that the modern day British family have adopted - and from this stems their disdain for the DOW and his foppish frivolity.

Fun to think about is the time when Albert was the 'New Guard' and how he must have looked to the colourful 18th Centrury style Old Guard of his day. Or even how Albert must have looked to the Brummell inspired Dandies who also preceeded him. Because their sober palette was very different in intent to his.

Post-Albert we all think that rigid sartorial rules are "Traditional", but there is a sense in which he was just a rather sober blip in the history of menswear when you look at what came before him & what came after.

Gentlemen, I give you Two Men In Black: Beau Brummell & Prince Albert. Very different coves.

Who do you vote for?

J.


(Or instead of voting you could get the thread back on track?)