Colours and elegance

[Gruto]

Okay, let's have some specific examples. What do think of configurations like these from Hilditch & Key:











Is it too much "matching" or "intent", or do you like them?

[pvpatty]

The last one is a bit too busy to my eye; I would probably go for a deep navy blue necktie.

[storeynicholas]

I thought that there existed broad agreement that there should be no agonizing over this!! The object is to go into a kind of auto pilot and instinctively recognize good and bad ideas on this subject. Or am I missing the point?
NJS

[pvpatty]

I thought that there existed broad agreement that there should be no agonizing over this!! The object is to go into a kind of auto pilot and instinctively recognize good and bad ideas on this subject. Or am I missing the point?
NJS

I suppose it's like learning an instrument; you have to agonize over your technique and keeping doing your scales until you reach a point where you have mastered them so well that you can ignore what's written on the page and play from the soul.


Though I'm not sure whether that really makes any sense, given that I don't play any instruments

[Jordan Marc]

Paul:

Interesting analogy, playing a musical instrument. Soul is part of making music, and so breathing. Ask any performing artist why he or she plays
a particular instrument, and you'll be told: "It's my oxygen!"

Putting a shirt and tie and pocket square together is an exercise in pattern-on-pattern, which relies on constantly changing the scale of the designs and getting the different items to co-mingle harmoniously. Like music, it takes practice. After a while, it comes quite easily.

How do you learn which colors harmonize with one another? Get a book on color theory. Head for an art museum and wonder through the galleries for a look at how various painters and sculptors applied paint to canvas or textures and patinas to sculpture. Walk through a park or head for the countryside and take a look at how nature does it at different seasons. Nature isn't perfect, it makes lots of mistakes, but the color
combinations and patterns are exquisite.

JMB

[storeynicholas]

This H&K selection - and, often the T&A selection in the window - make me go They engage window dressers to catch our attention. For my own part, all these combos are far too much - and I'll just stick to my plain shirts and (comparatively) very unadventurous ties - this is one reason that I like[d] Sulka so much - many of their ties were interesting close up but not outstanding across the street - but had a distinguished and rarified air - neither loud nor dull; expensive but understated and just about the bees' knees; the cat's whiskers and making one feel very pleased to know their goods and to have the sense to wear them. My test is this: if Brummell lived again for long enough to walk up and down St James's Street in modern clothes, would we see him in a loud striped shirt and glaring tie combo?
NJS[/i]

[Gruto]

I suppose it's like learning an instrument; you have to agonize over your technique and keeping doing your scales until you reach a point where you have mastered them so well that you can ignore what's written on the page and play from the soul.

Putting a shirt and tie and pocket square together is an exercise in pattern-on-pattern, which relies on constantly changing the scale of the designs and getting the different items to co-mingle harmoniously. Like music, it takes practice. After a while, it comes quite easily ... Walk through a park or head for the countryside and take a look at how nature does it at different seasons.

Good analogy, good advices.

My test is this: if Brummell lived again for long enough to walk up and down St James's Street in modern clothes, would we see him in a loud striped shirt and glaring tie combo?

So is a loud shirt or tie a problem per se? That type of Brummelian fundamentalism doesn't make sense to me.

[storeynicholas]

My test is this: if Brummell lived again for long enough to walk up and down St James's Street in modern clothes, would we see him in a loud striped shirt and glaring tie combo?

So is a loud shirt or tie a problem per se? That type of Brummelian fundamentalism doesn't make sense.

Conflicting sects exist within the same religions - the evidence is plain - members even kill each other for these differences. Often they are not that far apart to outside view. I think that a 'loud' anything is a problem as the description 'loud' in this context is negative. I don't mind bright ties but I think that a busy bright shirt and busy bright tie together is horrible: therefore, I shall stick to my Brummellian fundamentalism - which makes sense to me (for me) - but you are free to choose as you please and I don't mind.
NJS

[Gruto]

I think that a 'loud' anything is a problem as the description 'loud' in this context is negative. I don't mind bright ties but I think that a busy bright shirt and busy bright tie together is horrible: therefore, I shall stick to my Brummellian fundamentalism - which makes sense to me (for me) - but you are free to choose as you please and I don't mind.
NJS

Be bold, Sir! I once recieved that remark at Harvie & Hudson flipping through the cloth samples there. Maybe "bold" is a better word, "a bold shirt". I cannot see why we should avoid bold shirt or ties. Do we have to drink wine all the time leaving the beers for everyone else? No way.

[storeynicholas]

I think that a 'loud' anything is a problem as the description 'loud' in this context is negative. I don't mind bright ties but I think that a busy bright shirt and busy bright tie together is horrible: therefore, I shall stick to my Brummellian fundamentalism - which makes sense to me (for me) - but you are free to choose as you please and I don't mind.
NJS

Be bold, Sir! I once recieved that remark at Harvie & Hudson flipping through the cloth samples there. Maybe "bold" is a better word, "a bold shirt". I cannot see why we should avoid bold shirt or ties. Do we have to drink wine all the time leaving the beers for everyone else? No way.

Harvie & Hudson would say that, wouldn't they?! I think that Gianni Agnelli is one of the best recent exponents of my point - see the photos of him in the Photo thread - and all over the LL. Is restricting the palette of colour in any particular outfit, so to speak, the same as restricting the pallet of taste and being a narrow-minded wine drinker who foolishly ignores the world of beer - or cider, come to that; I have tasted ciders which are more pleasing than mediocre champagne - and much better value. I am not sure that your analogy is true, since it is the act of discernment which gets us to the mark and it is perfectly possible to appreciate the merits in sensation of a great cider or beer against the sensual blank of a mediocre champagne. I certainly do not advocate narrow-minded prejudice and general rules may stand exceptions through acts of discernment. But general rules, such as keeping your clothes less than strikingly bold, should not be broken just for the hell of it.
Those who never think to compare and test things miss out but I add to my list of people that I cannot imagine wearing the H&K combos, Agnelli. Please see whether you can find him in such boldness!!
NJS

[Gruto]

Harvie & Hudson would say that, wouldn't they?! I think that Gianni Agnelli is one of the best recent exponents of my point - see the photos of him in the Photo thread - and all over the LL. Is restricting the palette of colour in any particular outfit, so to speak, the same as restricting the pallet of taste and being a narrow-minded wine drinker who foolishly ignores the world of beer - or cider, come to that; I have tasted ciders which are more pleasing than mediocre champagne - and much better value. I am not sure that your analogy is true, since it is the act of discernment which gets us to the mark and it is perfectly possible to appreciate the merits in sensation of a great cider or beer against the sensual blank of a mediocre champagne. I certainly do not advocate narrow-minded prejudice and general rules may stand exceptions through acts of discernment. But general rules, such as keeping your clothes less than strikingly bold, should not be broken just for the hell of it.
Those who never think to compare and test things miss out but I add to my list of people that I cannot imagine wearing the H&K combos, Agnelli. Please see whether you can find him in such boldness!!
NJS

I haven't seen Agnelli in really bold shirts and ties, but our dear Duke did like bold shirts and ties. Plenty of them.

I think it's wrong to equal discreet dressing with elegance. Elegance has more to do with balancing opposite powers like colours.

[storeynicholas]

Harvie & Hudson would say that, wouldn't they?! I think that Gianni Agnelli is one of the best recent exponents of my point - see the photos of him in the Photo thread - and all over the LL. Is restricting the palette of colour in any particular outfit, so to speak, the same as restricting the pallet of taste and being a narrow-minded wine drinker who foolishly ignores the world of beer - or cider, come to that; I have tasted ciders which are more pleasing than mediocre champagne - and much better value. I am not sure that your analogy is true, since it is the act of discernment which gets us to the mark and it is perfectly possible to appreciate the merits in sensation of a great cider or beer against the sensual blank of a mediocre champagne. I certainly do not advocate narrow-minded prejudice and general rules may stand exceptions through acts of discernment. But general rules, such as keeping your clothes less than strikingly bold, should not be broken just for the hell of it.
Those who never think to compare and test things miss out but I add to my list of people that I cannot imagine wearing the H&K combos, Agnelli. Please see whether you can find him in such boldness!!

The Duke often looked perfectly dressed. Sometimes, I think that he missed the mark - some of his golfing outfits were just like burning beacons - ridiculed then and would be now too. He had just about unlimited resources to indulge in experiments so it is not surprising that he made mistakes along the way. Overall, he left us a heritage of clothes making for acceptable ease and comfort, without sacrificing elegance: it is possible that dinner jackets-tuxedoes would have been totally abandoned long ago if the Duke had not set his seal on soft evening shirts. Back on the shirts - to me the H&K combos look as though they have been selected by a robot, programmed by a fashion college, for a shop display.
NJS

I haven't seen Agnelli in really bold shirts and ties, but our dear Duke did like bold shirts and ties. Plenty of them.

Sorry Gruto my reply is above your entry above.
NJS

[storeynicholas]

Harvie & Hudson would say that, wouldn't they?! I think that Gianni Agnelli is one of the best recent exponents of my point - see the photos of him in the Photo thread - and all over the LL. Is restricting the palette of colour in any particular outfit, so to speak, the same as restricting the pallet of taste and being a narrow-minded wine drinker who foolishly ignores the world of beer - or cider, come to that; I have tasted ciders which are more pleasing than mediocre champagne - and much better value. I am not sure that your analogy is true, since it is the act of discernment which gets us to the mark and it is perfectly possible to appreciate the merits in sensation of a great cider or beer against the sensual blank of a mediocre champagne. I certainly do not advocate narrow-minded prejudice and general rules may stand exceptions through acts of discernment. But general rules, such as keeping your clothes less than strikingly bold, should not be broken just for the hell of it.
Those who never think to compare and test things miss out but I add to my list of people that I cannot imagine wearing the H&K combos, Agnelli. Please see whether you can find him in such boldness!!

The Duke often looked perfectly dressed. Sometimes, I think that he missed the mark - some of his golfing outfits were just like burning beacons - ridiculed then and would be now too. He had just about unlimited resources to indulge in experiments so it is not surprising that he made mistakes along the way. Overall, he left us a heritage of clothes making for acceptable ease and comfort, without sacrificing elegance: it is possible that dinner jackets-tuxedoes would have been totally abandoned long ago if the Duke had not set his seal on soft evening shirts. Back on the shirts - to me the H&K combos look as though they have been selected by a robot, programmed by a fashion college, for a shop display.
NJS

I haven't seen Agnelli in really bold shirts and ties, but our dear Duke did like bold shirts and ties. Plenty of them.

Sorry Gruto my reply is above your entry above.
NJS

[marcelo]

I thought that there existed broad agreement that there should be no agonizing over this!! The object is to go into a kind of auto pilot and instinctively recognize good and bad ideas on this subject. Or am I missing the point?
NJS

I suppose it's like learning an instrument; you have to agonize over your technique and keeping doing your scales until you reach a point where you have mastered them so well that you can ignore what's written on the page and play from the soul.


Though I'm not sure whether that really makes any sense, given that I don't play any instruments

The analogy is a most inspiring one. Aristotle recurs to same analogy to make a point for the idea that being a just person is not a matter of following moral principles, but of being trained to do just things, in just the same way one cannot become a good musician by simply following this or that rule:

“…the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. (…)
Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced.”

[shredder]

Do we have to drink wine all the time leaving the beers for everyone else? No way.

I thought that Carlsberg were diversified enough, but then again, if they tripped up, then Denmark would have a problem, wouldn't they?