Look at these guys. What is it about them??
Mr. Roetzel’s comments, in the above interview, about German self consciousness and his wanderings in search of a style seem like a bit of sartorial
sehnsucht. Reading this story made me think about one of the most stylish men I ever met, an Austrian; and the stark contrast between these two men and their stories may give us some clues about style, and answer part of your question.
Helmut Berger was perhaps the only man who could come close to Cary Grant for sheer physical beauty and grace. He shared a house in the seventies with a girlfriend of mine in Bel Air where he was seeking work in Hollywood, like yours truly. Berger displayed the most individual, spontaneous and original gift for elegance I have ever seen. I never saw him copy a style or tradition, try to be English or Italian, in fact, he seemed not to care about clothes (and rarely even bothered to wear any.)
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Mark the words down: individual, spontaneous and original. Maybe it was self confidence that kindled the individuality. Or maybe it was a faculty on another plane than mere confidence, a negligence about self, a kind of radiant detachment that instructs not to think, but to do, to be. It’s not rational, there is not an ounce of
sehnsucht, a mind set, a studied pose, an attempted style, a new cut, an older tailor, some new cloth, or the latest fashion.
It is shining.
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When you look at the pictures of Cary Grant, Marcelo, Agnelli and Berger, you see four of the most handsome men in recent history. But physical beauty has nothing to do with style or how would you explain Fred Astaire, Toto, Noiret, Jean Gabin, James Cagney? Not with the choice of their clothes!
To be continued............
