Colours and elegance

[radicaldog]

Forgive my brutality, but those H&K 'combos' seem rather tacky to me. The problem is not so much the boldness as the colour-matching. The third one from the top is particularly bad.

But then again, what is the target market of those 'combos'? Newly rich city boys and their (even) more provincial emulators. Mostly people who want to 'power dress' or 'dress to impress'. What could you expect?

[storeynicholas]

Forgive my brutality, but those H&K 'combos' seem rather tacky to me. The problem is not so much the boldness as the colour-matching. The third one from the top is particularly bad.

But then again, what is the target market of those 'combos'? Newly rich city boys and their (even) more provincial emulators. Mostly people who want to 'power dress' or 'dress to impress'. What could you expect?

Spot-on RD - are you of Dalmatian stock? From my entries above, I timidly agree with your brutal approach!!!! You can just see these combos with black Armani suits and Gucci loafers and all the rest of it. Having said that, I think that there are some interesting points arising in the thread,independent of the pictures.
NJS[/i]

[David V]

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.

I think the key word is here, in your statement :
" I cannot see why we should avoid bold shirt or ties."

[marcelo]

I don’t think there are very strict rules for colours coordination here. Still, this sample from Brook Brothers may perhaps add some material for discussion as to what some consider as good and bad ideas, whether or not we arrive at them instinctively (as suggested by NJS) or through laborious considerations on the principles of a theory of colours.


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[Gruto]

I get it's risky to dress in bold shirts and ties - one shouldn't start with them, but still I dont understand the unwillingness of using them alltogether. To me the challenge seems to be, how you control bold shirts/ties, not how you avoid them forever. The Duke was a master of elegant boldness. It CAN be done

[storeynicholas]

I get it's risky to dress in bold shirts and ties - one shouldn't start with them, but still I dont understand the unwillingness of using them alltogether. To me the challenge seems to be, how you control bold shirts/ties, not how you avoid them forever. The Duke was a master of elegant boldness. It CAN be done

Presumably, the starting place is what suits you - and then - recognizing it. I did say that instinct is the guide and I don't entirely resile from that - but simplicity is also a guide and Agnelli stands out for that - in modern times.
NJS

[NES]

storeynicholas wrote:

Gruto wrote:
I get it's risky to dress in bold shirts and ties - one shouldn't start with them, but still I dont understand the unwillingness of using them alltogether. To me the challenge seems to be, how you control bold shirts/ties, not how you avoid them forever. The Duke was a master of elegant boldness. It CAN be done


Presumably, the starting place is what suits you - and then - recognizing it. I did say that instinct is the guide and I don't entirely resile from that - but simplicity is also a guide and Agnelli stands out for that - in modern times.

It seems we are finally getting somewhere in this thread.

Gruto, I, also, think it can be done. And should be done. And I think NJS's advises are good and very close to my own thoughts.

What is bold and not bold is certainly very subjective. The issues here have been bright and saturated colours and the matching of different patterns. This is very complex and - eventually, because that complexity needs to resolve - leads to colour matching, with not very good results.

Let us keep patterns ou of this for a while.

You want - rightfully - bolder, brighter or richer colours. However, the risk is that, in the process, you sacrifice yourself, you sacrifice your own image. Cézanne refered to this problem in painting: the risk of loosing depth and the image becoming flat like a playing card.

Now, you must have that depth, you must create, preserve and enhance that depth - not destroy it. If, in that process you can expand your means of expression, by using more colour, that's very good, and even desirable, but you must not forget what is your main objective.

Both Gianni Agnelli and the Duke of Windsor - when he did´t miss the mark - are very good examples of this. What they were doing was not that different. Their different strategies should be connected to their different physiognomies - Agnelli's face had a lot of contrast, the Duke's had very little. Windsor´s strategy is probably leading to more chomatic variety but, when he is sucessful, he is working within a narrow contrast range, he is keeping things simple somewhere, and that allows him to free that chromatic variety.

I feel their examples can be very useful in helping us understand what suits one person and why, and what are the limits to what we can do and can't do sucessfully. And also what are the areas where those limits could be expanded.

[Frog in Suit]

For what it is worth, and I certainly would not want to think of myself as a model or inspiration:

I would agreee with NJS in that I follow my instinct when choosing a suit/ shirt/ tie/ pocket handkerchief combination. I am much too lazy to learn any colour theory.

I would beg to differ with NJS in two ways: one, the wearing of a handkerchief in the breast pocket in town, but if the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales do it, who am I, the most obscure of commoners, to dare disagree ?

I also wear spotted ties and striped shirts togetther . I even wear bold stripes shirts with spotted ties. I make it more manageable by first staying with simple stripes (mostly blue on white, sometimes dark red on white) and second by keeping my ties (all of them dark blue or, if red, bright or dark) quiet, in fact, the bolder the shirt, the quieter the tie. My suits are also pretty subdued.

When I wear a really bold shirt, with more than two colours (including white), I put on a plain suit or coat. I think both keeping the colours simple (white base, blue or red stripes for the shirts, blue or red for the ties) and eschewing loud suit patterns, I manage to not look like a clown most of the time .

Frog in Suit

PS: references to Nicholas Sorey's History of Men's Fashion: pages 22 and 30.