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#1 2006-11-04 05:17:03

Terry Lean
Member
Posts: 2440

A Bespoke Joke on Those Not In The Know...

"  'There is a cloth exclusively woven for officers of the Household Cavalry, used in the making of travelling and sporting overcoats and now usually for country caps. Never in history had this cloth been used for for the making of a suit. On a light reddish-brown background it has a bright red check about three inches square. Evelyn made tailoring history by ordering a suit in this cloth.'

Not only was the material outrageous, but Waugh had it cut (adds Sykes) so that 'a bright red line... ran down the fly buttons'. To the suit, he added a grey bowler hat from a shop in St James's. 'The result', says Sykes, 'surpassed the wildest extravagances of an old-fashioned music-hall comdian.'  "

Humphrey Carpenter quoting Chrostopher Sykes on Evelyn Waugh in The Brideahead Generation. Faber. 1989

The above is Waugh 'round about 1953... A nice example of 'F*ck You' tailoring. Waugh would wear this suit to London, but not at home in the country.

T.L.


"One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing"

 

#2 2006-11-04 06:49:58

Lord Hillyer
Member
Posts: 507

Re: A Bespoke Joke on Those Not In The Know...

Ha. Christopher sure can spin them, can't he? And people gobble it up.

 

#3 2006-11-04 07:14:59

Terry Lean
Member
Posts: 2440

Re: A Bespoke Joke on Those Not In The Know...


"One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing"

 

#4 2006-11-06 02:50:07

Horace
Member
Posts: 6433

Re: A Bespoke Joke on Those Not In The Know...

What gets me about Waugh is that his aesthetic sense and bearing and everything else seemed to be so contorted by his horribly snobbery, insecurity, and byzantine wandering through the faith of the Catholic Church.

Just the impression I got from reading that 2 vol Waugh bio., and some of his other works (I think I've read most).

And his letters with Mitford.

What a miserable bugger.

But so damn talented and hilarious.


""This is probably the last Deb season...because of the stock market, the economy, Everything..." - W. Stillman.

 

#5 2006-11-06 05:04:20

Terry Lean
Member
Posts: 2440

Re: A Bespoke Joke on Those Not In The Know...

I'm a fan, but at a distance. Sitting next to him at dinner would be hard work.


"One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing"

 

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