Are clothes too much the vanity? Do we pursue them to the exclusion of the man wearing them? Indeed, do they exist in a vacuum separate from the wearer?
I would like to hear from everyone on suggestions for films (characters), shows, commercials, books, plays, musicals, from now and any time from the past that frame the western gentlemanly ideal and the surrounding concepts of taste, refinement and etiquette.
I leave the slate blank so as not to influence the threads direction too much.
Jeeves and Wooster.
The gentlemanly ideal is an increasingly elusive conceit. Internet menswear forums tend to bandy the term around when disapproving of various patterns of behaviour, as if a gentleman were little more than an extremely well behaved schoolboy.
Certainly clothing can be disconnected from gentlemanliness, no amount of the proper clothing will disguise a dolt and conversely a gent in a hoodie (unlikely but indulge the notion for argument's sake) would remain a gent.
Still, Rathbone's portrayal of Holmes is as pleasing a benchmark as any.
Saturday Night Sunday Morning (1960). The story of a hard grafting working class man in factory work. He drinks, he chases women and would not be classed as a man of talent or gentleman. He does, however enjoy looking his best in his own time. I don't think Arthur, the character the film revolves around, wears them for any other purpose than his own pleasure. Their part of his release from a mundane life that comes around every weekend..."All I'm out for is a good time - all the rest is propaganda."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98q0Y_CuAvc
Its always been the Scarlett Pimpernel for me. Interestingly its a foreigners view of what an (English) gentleman should be, the author Baroness Orczy was Hungarian.
....he gets the tone just right...don't y'know.....Half cad...half adventurer...half fop...
Anthony Andrews and especially Richard E. Grant did a great job portraying him on screen...
"Kind hearts and coronets"
Very funny Ealing comedy but it shows Edwardian aristocrats (mostly played by Alec Guinness) in an assortment of finery.
At the risk of...well, no, the certainty of being painfully obvious- Fred Astaire
A little bit too on point all the time, yet I could hardly fault him for that.
A gentleman would not even know what NASCAR means.
Simon Crompton.
No. I can't do it. I can't press 'submit' without saying 'not really'.
Steed from "The Avengers"
The Roger Moore character in "The Persuaders" but definitely not the Tony Curtis character.
Bulldog Drummond.
"The League of Gentlemen" - the Jack Hawkins film, not the TV series about the strange inhabitants of Royston
Vesey.
This is in "officer and a gentlemen" vein. Though many of the officers have dodgy histories.
Gentlemen v players cricket matches (until 1962) are a "show" of sorts.
Players were paid. Gentlemen were amateurs and usually had three initials.