November 27, 2014 |
Few species have been so closely defined and redefined as the English gentleman has, as an archetype of both grace and fatuity. Oscar Wilde, of course, could not resist a jibe: he pointed out that a gentleman is a person who never hurt anyone’s feelings – unintentionally. For PG Wodehouse, aunts weren’t gentlemen, meaning that a forbidding elderly lady was never subject to the constraints in speech or behaviour that governed her male counterpart. But my all-time favourite definition of the English gentleman is the one that points out that he is a man who knows how to play the bagpipes but never does.
All three definitions, of course, home in on the major characteristic of the English gentleman, which is his consideration for others.
Let us admit immediately that this characteristic is a manifestation of the thing that makes the English gentleman so very hard to stomach. We are talking of the effortless superiority and arrogance that enable him not only to look down on and patronise every other male on the planet, with the exception of top sportsmen, great explorers and senior Church of England clergy (especially those with the right to sit in the House of Lords), but also whole nations, for many of which he has coined some very dismissive, and even insulting names.
However, jumped-up millionaires, even those of foreign blood, might well be tolerated if they are generous with their money, especially in casinos or forking out a considerable amount of money to help with the restoration of crumbling stately homes. They are accepted even more, of course, if they actually buy the house that the owner has not been able to afford to heat or repair for more than 20 years, especially if they give the ex-owner a small place in the Caribbean as a compensation.
So, who is this strange creature, the English gentleman, and where did he come from? How does he dress and how does he behave? Why and how is he so different? And why, well into the 21st century, is he still seen by many men across the globe as an exemplar, to be looked up to and even emulated? Quite simply, it is the effortless look and sound of total superiority that he adopted way back in the 18th century and which still convince today.
For several centuries, English gentlemen owned or certainly administered huge tracts of land, entire countries and even complete continents across the globe. And they did so with a ruthless rod of iron. Appalled in many parts of the Empire to find the natives dressed in sloppy footwear and wearing clothes that barely covered the body, they decided to teach them by example. And the example was, regardless of the heat, to dress as near as possible to the way they would dress when going for a stroll in the West End of London prior to a little lunch at their clubs in St James’s.
The English gentleman is only really happy in formal clothes. And because he sees new clothes as a sign of the nouveau riche, he prefers them well worn in. His shirt might be a little frayed, but it will be immaculately laundered, and his tie, normally a club or regimental one, will be spotless and tied with the perfect knot that so often defeats us lesser mortals. His shoes, which the true English gentleman expects to last for his entire life and be made to an unchanging pattern, will be polished to shine like silver. In the past, when all gentlemen had a personal servant, it was part of his job to wear new shoes until they were “broken in” and would fit the ducal foot with total comfort. Although it is perfectly acceptable for the English gentleman to walk with a limp as a result of a troublesome war wound or accident with a wild beast he was bent on killing, the limp that is the result of corns or ingrowing toenails due to cheap, badly fitting shoes is seen as flagrantly lower class.
Most important of all, and the rock upon which the gentleman’s appearance is built, is the perfectly tailored suit, for which he stands in his tailor’s, being fitted as many as three separate times, barely moving and certainly not complaining, while he is measured, adjusted and virtually given a second skin, so well does it follow his body on completion. It couldn’t be further away from the high-street menswear shop, where a suit is chosen, tried on and pinned for the correct length of leg in about 20 minutes and that is that. And, needless to say, it costs at least four, and maybe as much as 10, times more. It also is still wearable 20 years after the high-street one has gone for landfill.
The epicentre of gentlemanly dressing is of course London’s Savile Row, although it has not been so for anywhere near the amount of time that historians suggest. Many of the tailoring firms now considered the backbone of English masculine dress only set up shop there as late as the 1920s and early 1930s, in response to the great surge of interest in fine tailoring that started then. Indian princes, Hollywood actors and international statesmen all beat a path to Savile Row, looking not for the backbone of the English gentleman’s wardrobe – tweeds as fine as cashmere or so tough they could withstand all that the British countryside can throw at throw at them, but for the tuxedo and sometimes tails that will provide a “drop dead” moment at a red-carpet event as the only really formal look left for most men in these days of T-shirts, trainers and the truly dreadful cut-off cargo shorts, which are probably the most hideous garment ever created for man’s body. We’ve come a long way from Beau Brummell and his prissy rules about clean linen, perfectly tied stocks and no detail to destroy the perfection of the tailored line, certainly, but not always on the right road.
It was inevitable, of course. The English gentleman has never been interested in fashion. His whole life, certainly until mid-20th century, when the certainty of continuity and even survival became questionable, was devoted to keeping everything as it was, not the rapid changes that fashion demands if it is to keep its vitality. That’s why, even in his late sixties, the Georgian gentleman would happily pay for a three-mile avenue of saplings to be planted, knowing that he would never see them in the glory of their full maturity but absolutely certain that his grandchildren would. It was the same with clothes. They were bought for life. When I was at university I had a friend who wore a slightly shabby but beautifully cut dinner jacket. It had been in his family for almost 80 years and, in all that time, it had never been altered in order to follow fashion changes. He confidently expected to hand it on to his sons some day, in a pass-the-baton movement that is inherent in everything a true gentleman does.
What does that tell us about the English gentleman and his approach to dress? Several things, I would suggest. Foremost that clothes, for him, are not about flattering his vanity by making him feel attractive, but about value, and are rarely to be changed. Bought for life and expected to last for more than one life, like his trees. Secondly, that he dislikes change – and especially if it costs him money. Most important of all, to make him easily recognisable to his own breed and distance him from other breeds in exactly the way markings and colours do in the animal kingdom. And finally, to encourage and assist bonding by allowing the English gentleman to do exactly what he wants to do, as long as he is dressed like every other English gentleman.
Let’s end with a story that I was once told by a gentleman. It is probably not true, but I so want it to be. Two elderly dukes meet in St James’s and one notices that the other is wearing a rather beaten-up country suit. When he remonstrates with him about standards, his friend replies rather grandly, “Oh, don’t worry. Nobody knows me here.” A week or two later the first duke goes to a shoot at his friend’s estate and, in church on Sunday morning, notices that he is wearing the same old suit. Walking back to the house for lunch, he comments on it unfavourably. The reply was, “My dear chap, don’t worry. Everybody knows me here.” That is why it is said that a duke always comes out on top – and smiling. Born to win in all things, including his dress.
By Colin McDowell
