Sometimes we spend so much time discussing clothes and styles that we forget the first step towards being well dressed and that is being clean.

Maybe I take cleanliness for granted but after seeing a collar on a shirt at my shirtmaker's that was there for cleaning, perhaps this is shouldnt be so. The shirt look exactly like a shirt I owned and brought in for laundering in a medium blue end on end body with a sky end on end collar but for an instant I thought the shirt had had motor oil spilled on it because the inside of the collar was brown and slick, like the overipe peel of a banana. I was reassured that it wasnt my shirt but that of a customer who wore his shirts a number of times before washing them. The result was not only to ruin the inside of the neckband but also to leave a brownish ring along the top outside of the collar that makes it look like the wearer has just produced a grimy sweat. That's about as disgusting as it gets. It makes me think this person is content with walking around with several layers of redried perspiration and body odor. And who knows what other nasty habits a person like this has.

Not everyone who buys nice clothes and wants to look stylish understands that cleanliness is next to dandyness. The fundamental starting difference between Brummell and his contemporaries and peers was that he was clean while everyone else was filthy and he introduced the concept of soap and water and scrubbing.

I understand that to a certain extent these things are learned at home and it may take someone exceptional who has poor personal hygiene, wants to come to grips with it and change themselves for the better both for themselves and everyone around them but I thought it worth a mention that being clean is much more elemental than adding additional items of finery.

You cannot be well dressed without being clean and well groomed. Your friends are soaps, body washes, clean water, wash cloths, towels, deoderants, razors, colognes, nail files, clippers, toothpastes, tooth brushes etc...

Thus, if youre already devoted to the ethic of cleanliness, then keep up the good work but if you are a friend of mildew, you might do well to put off that next pair of shoes and invest instead in an excellent bar of scented soap or body wash. For soap I always liked Creed or Trumper and for body wash the Molton Brown introduced to me recently has been interesting, although drug store brands like Dove soap and body wash will do as long as they are vigorously applied.