The London Lounge

I'm not entirely certain that the term 'hard adornment' fairly describes this matter, but I'd welcome your view on description as well as advisability : what I'm referring to might also be referred to as jewellery, but on a chap.

We have discussed elsewhere the question of wristwatches. However practical and utilitarian, the design usually projects a stylistic indicator of the wearer. We can choose a 'dress' watch, say, or sports watch perhaps - but such sporting divers' watches seem rarely to risk more than a soaking while washing up the dishes, let alone being tested to 300m of ocean.

I do occasionally wear a plain gold seal-engraved signet ring - and when my lottery ticket turns up a result - I might just replace it with a sardonyx version. I don't wear a wedding ring, only because Im not keen on adding yet another piece of jewellery to need keeping track of. Beyond that, despite a drawer-full of cufflinks, I almost always wear a pair of double ended plain silver convex ovals.

I've noticed that some men have matching (more usually just complementary) watches, pens, rings, lighters etc. The style impression this gives can be positive - but, in my own view, can very easily fall into caricature. A colleague many years ago had a matching Dupont lighter, cufflinks and pen. His very elegant manners carried the stylish impression to very good effect - on almost anyone else in the office at the time it would have just looked laboured at best, daft at worst.

Are lapel badges ever acceptable unless you are a tour guide? Should you wear a buttonhole 'vase' (like David Suchet in Poirot) at the risk of looking like a bit of a twerp? What about watch chains from lapel to top pocket? Bangles? Seriously?

So - where does one draw the limits to 'hard adornment'? Should one even attempt to 'match' tie clip to cufflinks? Will a perfect 'ensemble' be wrecked by a matching nose piercing?

Your own view of the 'Rules of Hard Adornment' would be most informative.

Regards

David

Melcombe wrote: I've noticed that some men have matching (more usually just complementary) watches, pens, rings, lighters etc. The style impression this gives can be positive - but, in my own view, can very easily fall into caricature. A colleague many years ago had a matching Dupont lighter, cufflinks and pen. His very elegant manners carried the stylish impression to very good effect - on almost anyone else in the office at the time it would have just looked laboured at best, daft at worst.

Are lapel badges ever acceptable unless you are a tour guide? Should you wear a buttonhole 'vase' (like David Suchet in Poirot) at the risk of looking like a bit of a twerp? What about watch chains from lapel to top pocket? Bangles? Seriously?

So - where does one draw the limits to 'hard adornment'? Should one even attempt to 'match' tie clip to cufflinks? Will a perfect 'ensemble' be wrecked by a matching nose piercing?

Ha! Nicely phrased. Highly personal questions of taste--a couple of thoughts. Another probable reason your colleague's matching Dupont items probably did not seem excessive might be that usually only one of the three was visible at a time, and at most two. One is seldom writing, lighting up, and wearing double cuffs all at once.

It used to be said that one's lapel buttonhole should only be used for a natural flower or the rosette of one's Legion d'Honneur. I think President Obama had absorbed that standard when he was attacked for "failing" to wear a U.S. flag pin during his first presidential campaign. I have a lot of sympathy for this point of view. The Brioni book The Boutonniere: Style in One's Lapel has instructions for preparing a boutonniere without the buttonhole "vase," to keep it fresh and avoid staining the lapel cloth if, as is increasingly likely, you don't have a local florist who can provide one readymade. Many "standard" length lapel buttonholes are actually too short to properly accommodate a flower with a calyx of any size; I usually ask for a "carnation" buttonhole or specify a length (usually 1 1/4 inches). There are very few lapel badges that do not look like trade-show swag to my eye.

To wear a pocket watch secured from your lapel makes you unusual all by itself. A leather strap loop seems perfectly inoffensive with a country tweed, but a chain so close to the face might be a bit much, and even more questionable with a city flannel or worsted--these seem to cry out either for a blossom or unadorned simplicity.

I find matching metal accessories (I think of '70s wraparound cufflink and tie bar sets) almost uniformly unfortunate when worn; exceptions of course are dress sets of studs and links, best when understated. Merely complementary accessories, which appear to have been chosen on their own merits and not acquired in round lots, can be fine, but then they would not call attention to the fact that they were complementary. In this category would fall things like wearing a gold belt buckle with gold watch or ring rather than a silver buckle. Although, contrary to much iGent advice, there has never been anything "incorrect" about mixing metals. Is a man whose wedding band is yellow gold to remove it just so he can wear steel eyeglass frames or sport watch bracelet? I don't think so.

Some thought can be taken for such things, though. I wear rimless eyeglasses with gunmetal wire temples, partly so that they don't distract from my facial expression, and partly so that whatever small amount of metal I'm wearing elsewhere will not call attention either to its "matchiness" or the reverse. I do sometimes wear a small antique gold signet-type ring with a flat lapis oval inset (since I'm not armigerous), and when I do I generally wear a vintage gold dress watch, or none at all, on that wrist, rather than my steel sport watch. But I don't obsess about it.

Bangles, "ID" bracelets,"friendship" bracelets, and those neon plastic charity wristbands are not my thing. I've seen some men who pulled off one of them at a time in a casual context, but I would look like a fop.