Briatore's Wedding

[sartorius]

He wore a magnificently cut morning coat with stylish dark red inner lining, and worn (as one always should) with matching black trousers and waistcoat. Just in case anyone didn’t notice I was exercising Anglo-Saxon ironic humour. What else to say but that the tie is badly tied, the coat is definitely not bespoke nor MTM, and if it is he should get his money back, as his sleeves are way too short, his armholes too thick, the shoulders too big, the lapels too wide… But the worst of it all is definitely the waistcoat… I won’t list the number of wrong things on it (the high-v-front horrible mixture, terrible lapels…), as it’s shorter to say simply that it would probably look better without it (even if it is wrong to not wear one with a morning coat).

I may be about to commit heresy, but there we are: I don't think Sgr Briatore looks quite as bad as all that! I agree that the lapels look rather too wide, and I personally would never wear a morning coat with matching black trousers and waistcoat. Nor do I particularly like the dark red lining. But to me, these are all details. The overall cut and line of the suit doesn't look that bad. The roll on the lapels looks good, the shoulder treatment looks fine (a little roping and a fair bit of structure by the looks of it) and although the sleeves do look a little short, this may be because he is waving and therefore pulling the coat up away from the wrists. In any case, perhaps he likes to show a good inch of cuff. Nothing wrong with that!

[/i]

[storeynicholas]

Whatever else, these folk have certainly caught our attention!
NJS

[Sator]

I yield to no one in my love of history -- I may be the only Lounger who has actually worked as an historian -- but I must agree that we need dress with an eye to our actual environment, if for no other reason than that we should not gratuitously discomfort those with whom we have to do as friend, neighbor, customer, or guest.

Hang on there. Aren't you talking about the American situation? In more traditional European weddings, guests still wear morning dress. What is wrong with keeping up European traditions such the wearing of morning dress by guests, if there are going to be other guests dressed that way too? And if you are amid a group of other guests in morning dress, what is wrong with minor variations such as detachable stand up collar and bow tie, especially if you may have been doing that all your life as the above gentleman? Why do you feel he has to start dressing down to the level of the lowest common denominator and wear a lounge suit? Ditto for morning dress at the Royal Ascot. Or perhaps you are railing against the wearing of morning dress (or historic costume as you have dubbed it) there as well?

[Sator]

I may be about to commit heresy, but there we are: I don't think Sgr Briatore looks quite as bad as all that! I agree that the lapels look rather too wide, and I personally would never wear a morning coat with matching black trousers and waistcoat. Nor do I particularly like the dark red lining. But to me, these are all details. The overall cut and line of the suit doesn't look that bad. The roll on the lapels looks good, the shoulder treatment looks fine (a little roping and a fair bit of structure by the looks of it) and although the sleeves do look a little short, this may be because he is waving and therefore pulling the coat up away from the wrists. In any case, perhaps he likes to show a good inch of cuff. Nothing wrong with that![/i]

I agree with you entirely and feel he should be least lauded for keeping up traditions overall, even if there are some strange deviations such as the wearing of a black morning suit for a wedding, in lieu of a grey coat with cashmere striped trousers and lighter coloured waistcoat. His top hat is also missing, and he is wearing a dinner shirt with a pleated bib . Nor do I like the odd narrow placement of the waistcoat buttons. And, yes, the red lining is a bit loud, but I can think of countless worse things.





While it is hardly elegant, it is infinitely preferable to some trashy Hollywood wedding with the groom dressed as a waiter with his "Tuxedo" in broad daylight.

He is even sporting a pocket square and a boutonnière in the lapel hole - if this was an American wedding it would have been pinned on like President Bush's one at his daughter's wedding with not a morning coat in sight anywhere.



Or worse

[storeynicholas]

Surely, all that RWS is saying is: dress in a way that is appropriate to the environment and the company; or, put another way, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.... Where is the difference between you? I discern none - although.. I have just been able to see the last picture where the chap is wearing a swallow-tail evening coat with morning dress....and, unless men are billionaires, do women afull foot taller, really marry them?
NJS.

[Frog in Suit]

[
Hang on there. Aren't you talking about the American situation? In more traditional European weddings, guests still wear morning dress. What is wrong with keeping up European traditions such the wearing of morning dress by guests, if there are going to be other guests dressed that way too?

This European (and his ushers/best men, whatever they are called) wore morning dress at his US wedding, the groom's being bespoke from a London tailor, the others' locally hired): black coat, pale grey waistcoats, striped trousers. That was almost seventeen years ago. All the male guests wore a suit and a tie, at the very least a conservative sports jacket.

Frog in Suit

[Guille]

I don't think we should be discussing so much abou this. I agree with Gruto that historical clothing is not our interest and that we should have in mind today's environment - However, I don't mean by this that we should wear tuxedos in daylight, but what is the difference between a Briatore's morning coat and Tom Cruise's tuxedo? Not much.

Sator, I know that bowties were once perfectly acceptable with morning dress, however you know that Mr.Benetton was not intending it as a prove of his knowledge of late 19th century clothing but as a touch of modernity, and if it looked good I wouldn't have any problem, but it's a black bowtie as if for black tie and that I cannot stand. Sorry but I don't my criticism of him was too harsh, I did say the coat fit properly. However, the waistcoat is too bad. It is perfectly fine to wear a "dove grey waistcoats with morning dress" as you said, but the one he wears just looks wrong, I don't know what it's made of but it certainly isn't a very formal fabric. Plus, it is always preferable to wear a double-breasted waistcoat with lapels with morning dress, and he is wearing a single-breasted without lapels, not that it's wrong, it's just so uncommon and non typical that unless one has a lot of style (or is very elegant, which we already agreed he isn't), it is hard to make it look good - and he fails. I'm sure that this is true: "I would happily wear a morning coat with bow tie, detachable winged collar, and dove grey waistcoat" but the problem is how he wears that, the wrong bow tie, winged collar in an environment were msot men are wearing suits, strange dove grey waistcoat... I think you would wear that properly, not like this man.

As Storeynicholas said, these men don't look well clothed nor well dressed, and that is the problem.

Sartorius, I don't think those are details when you put them together, because what have got left? If the shoulders, sleeves and waist of the coat are wrong, and they are, the coat cannot be right. It's true that he is waving, but look at the coat, and the structure, it's not tailored for sure, and if it is, it wasn't tailored by a proper tailor but by someone who does some kind of job somewhat passing as tailoring. And what defines formalwear is in the details. If you wear a morning coat with dark red lining, matching black waistcoat and trousers, pleated shirt... What are you wearing? I don't think you can call that morning dress. It's in the details that you are wearing morning dress, or strollers, or black tie or white tie.

Sator, what RWS was saying was not that we should stop wearing formalwear. I'm completely in favour of wearing morning coats for weddings and other occasions, and black tie, and white tie, and a stroller to work as you do. But wearing what Briatore is wearing is just as bad as what Americans wear to their weddings. I don't think there's that much difference, I've seen people wearing navy blue sport jackets to weddings which were considered formal. The movement towards informality is happening at both sides of the atlantic, perhaps faster in US because there is less tradition, or better said, the occasions were it was traditional to wear formalwear are dissapearing, but in Europe we are keeping them (ascot, Vienna operas, Nobel prizes...). And I'm not an expert but maybe we can ask the people of lounge who have been to ascot if they would allow Briatore in his wedding attire attend the Royal Enclosure? The men in your photograph are not dressed like him, and you know that.

[Sator]

I don't think we should be discussing so much abou this. I agree with Gruto that historical clothing is not our interest and that we should have in mind today's environment - However, I don't mean by this that we should wear tuxedos in daylight, but what is the difference between a Briatore's morning coat and Tom Cruise's tuxedo? Not much.

However, the waistcoat is too bad. It is perfectly fine to wear a "dove grey waistcoats with morning dress" as you said, but the one he wears just looks wrong, I don't know what it's made of but it certainly isn't a very formal fabric. Plus, it is always preferable to wear a double-breasted waistcoat with lapels with morning dress, and he is wearing a single-breasted without lapels, not that it's wrong, it's just so uncommon and non typical that unless one has a lot of style (or is very elegant, which we already agreed he isn't), it is hard to make it look good - and he fails.

Sorry Guille, but I will reiterate that I can see nothing wrong with that grey waistcoat. A morning waistcoat need not be made of any "formal fabric". It can be made of plain woollen worsted or even linen. I have one that is admittedly barathea but it is not a requirement. Nor does a morning waistcoat have to be double breasted. I think single breasted waistcoats look simply splendid.



Here is another instance of morning dress with single breasted waistcoat, winged collar and bow tie:



The wearer is Churchill.

I have spent a lot of time on the internet as a tireless advocate of morning dress. I have debated many sceptics - at one time even Manton, before he eventually wrote his wedding attire thread. Invariably the biggest doubters are Americans, who are mostly unfamiliar with morning dress and dismiss it off hand as being utterly ridiculous. You may take it all for granted but it took me a lot of hard work to educate everyone to the current level.

[RWS]

I think I was a witness to that wedding . . . .

Seriously, American conventions don't differ much from English in dress. What foreigners and most Americans generally see, however, are celebrations held by or for the "glitterati" who (and I hope that my fellow American Loungers will forgive me the "non-PC" assessment) largely are of the lower classes (would they wish to be photographed so frequently and so publicly were they not?). With resentment of better-educated sections of society or of those who actually know who their grandparents' grandparents were (a resentment endemic since the 1930s, at the least), parodies (and similar) are common. A politician (and most now come from these same lower classes, for reasons grounded in history and societal make-up that would take us too far off topic -- and me, far too much time -- to try to explain) will not wish to appear other than a man with the common touch, so he, too, will seldom be seen in other than business suit (and even that will seldom be DB) or dinner jacket. The mass of people see photographs of such dress, wish to show their own independence of action (after all, we Americans never follow the crowd, do we?*) by a touch of color (powder-blue dinner jackets, anyone?) or oddity ("individuality") of cut (hence the current, if limited, craze for short frock coats), and copy the poor dress of the glitterati or politicians. Add to these sociological and quasi-political considerations the lack of tailors in the States and the reluctance of most American men to spend much on clothing, and the present situation comes clear.

I've been to many Protestant, Jewish, Roman, and even Greek weddings in the States, and I can assure my fellow Loungers that in the upper classes good dress still is apparent. Those weddings, though, rarely are photographed for publication.


*I do hope that all can see in their minds' eyes my tongue in cheek, here and elsewhere when I write.

[storeynicholas]

RWS - I didn't get the tongue in cheek thing as I was reading and, surely, there is some truth in what you say?

Ha ha ha
NJS

[Cufflink79]

He is even sporting a pocket square and a boutonnière in the lapel hole - if this was an American wedding it would have been pinned on like President Bush's one at his daughter's wedding with not a morning coat in sight anywhere.

What I find interesting is that President Bush is an Oxxford Clothes customer, and Oxxford provides a boutonniere loop behind the lapel.

What gives with the pinned boutonniere?

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

[storeynicholas]

Maybe the loop gave....
NJS

[Costi]

Cufflink, I suppose Mr. Bush didn't pin the flower to the lapel himself - he probably simply did not protest when some young lady decided to do it this way (perhaps unable to imagine lapel buttonholes are actually cut, and what for - let alone the existence of a loop behind the lapel).

I agree with Sator that the mere idea of wearing morning dress at one's wedding is laudable, but I also agree with Guille who thinks that morning dress is a code, a conventional dress with a limited degree of variability, not an occasion to display one's fantasy improvising on a piece of a classic dress. BECAUSE I like morning dress I don't want to see it turned into a joke. Has anyone noticed Mr. Briatore's discreet choice of shoes above?!

[Cufflink79]

Cufflink, I suppose Mr. Bush didn't pin the flower to the lapel himself - he probably simply did not protest when some young lady decided to do it this way (perhaps unable to imagine lapel buttonholes are actually cut, and what for - let alone the existence of a loop behind the lapel).!

I agree with you on that Costi. I have been to quite a few weddings in which I've seen many stick pin happy females running around putting a flower on evey single man they could find.

You'd think it was Woodstock!

If I ever get married, I would want to wear a nice simple morning suit like The Duke of Windsor had on.

I'd also have some bespoke cuff links made up to wear in which they'd be gold double sided hearts, one side bearing mine & the bride's first name, and the other side bearing the date of the wedding.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

[Costi]

I'd also have some bespoke cuff links made up to wear in which they'd be gold double sided hearts, one side bearing mine & the bride's first name, and the other side bearing the date of the wedding.

Very romantic, if I may say so.

"Getting married" (though gramatically correct) has a passive connotation to me, unlike the notion of MARRYING someone - an active attitude that I think better describes what the man does. Therefore "if I ever get married" sounds somewhat fatalist (to employ a concept introduced by Guille elsewhere on the LL). It probably happened to Briatore to get married, but I am sure it won't "happen" to you