The London Lounge

I've made a short interview with Bernhard Roetzel for a Danish blog. As most of you will know, Mr. Roetzel is the author of Gentleman, one of the classic books on timeless dressing. Here's an English version of the interview. I hope you'll enjoy it.

How do you look at the difference between Italian and English style?

In Italy style in menswear has the purpose to make a man look elegant and attractive. The English dress in a way that makes them look like aristocrats or "old money". They don't care so much about how sexy they look. They know that many women are not very fond of men who are too handsome and too well-dressed.

The English will rather wear a slightly scruffy bespoke suit that was handed down from their grandfather (or was bought at Oxfam) while the Italians usually are super smart. The Italians take their style very seriously, they usually lack the ability to laugh at themselves. Thus they look great but they are very often slightly boring company.

Italians in general tend to follow new fashions more than the English. I remember the time when the Woolrich Parka was new. Everybody in Italy wore it. It was really like a uniform and I couldn't stand the sight of the thing after a couple of days. The English are more hesitant to copy new looks. English style is all about classic and the only thing the add is the famous "twist".

What is dressing with style?

Style is usually something you acquire rather than being born with it. Thus all stylish people should be very humble because they haven't invented what they wear in 99 percent of the time (this includes myself). Style is very much about copying and imitating. It's similar to learning an instrument. I play the guitar myself and I have spent many years trying to sound like someone else. Sometimes you start to sound like yourself or look like yourself the moment when you realize that copying will not take you further. Or when you realize that all the time you spend studying others won't make you a master yourself. So dressing with style is a mixture of copying and making the best of one's abilities.

What inspires your own dressing?

When I was 21 I tried to look exactly like the Englishmen I admired. Some were characters on TV like John Steed or Siegfried Farnon, others were people from real life that I had seen on the street or in books. Then I started to discover Ivy League looks. Later there was a time in my life when I got in touch with Italian style which brought some new influences. Now I no longer try to look like an Englishman or American or Italian. I am what I am and I don't need to hide this fact by dressing like a Sloane Ranger or someone who lives in Naples. Stylish men in Germany have great difficulties accepting the fact that they are still Germans after all even if we eat Pasta all the time. My tailor is still English, my shoes are still made in Northampton and my shirtings come mainly from Switzerland but I mix everything more freely.

In a way my style of dress is very boring because I wear the same things for a very long time. In summer my everyday dress has been khaki pants, a dress shirt, an English saddle leather belt with brass buckles, suede shoes and a V neck sweater for 20 years or so. There is nothing better than khaki pants in summer. Of course I sometimes wear pink pants or red pants or green pants but khaki is still the best. What inspires me? The cloths I find. And my own feeling. I remember feeling that camel is a great colour last fall and now I see it in every collection.

How do you look at the future of the suit?

Only God knows the future. But I think that the suit cannot be replaced. Dresscodes will probably change in some way but the suit will be here until the world comes to its end. If you look at a car from the 1920s it's beautiful but it is definitely outdated. The suit has been created in the same decade but it is still young. Again I must think of guitars. Look at the Telecaster or the Les Paul. They are both the definitive solid body guitars but someone who doesn't know would never guess that they were both released in the early fifties. Some things cannot be improved. Especially if form and function are in perfect harmony.

In Italy style in menswear has the purpose to make a man look elegant and attractive. The English dress in a way that makes them look like aristocrats or "old money".

It’s maybe the translation, but I suspect he didn’t mean to register this rather clichéd comment. I am quite sure most English (Anglo style) dressers are keen on being elegant and attractive as well. I have never known or seen anyone who wanted to look like aristocrats, even those who are aristocrats. If anything, I find the well heeled Italians are more conscious of looking like “English” old money than the English.

They know that many women are not very fond of men who are too handsome and too well-dressed.

I now know why I never chased too many ladies when in Germany (bold faced lie.)

This comment comes from a world I don’t know and a human nature I am unfamiliar with. Dress is one of the very keys of seduction.

The English will rather wear a slightly scruffy bespoke suit that was handed down from their grandfather (or was bought at Oxfam) while the Italians usually are super smart.

The suit handed down from Grandpapa can be very smart as well, if the man wearing it is very smart.

The Italians take their style very seriously, they usually lack the ability to laugh at themselves. Thus they look great but they are very often slightly boring company.

I don’t think the Italians are particularly remarkable or noted for their narcissism as compared to any other of us humans.

Italians in general tend to follow new fashions more than the English. I remember the time when the Woolrich Parka was new. Everybody in Italy wore it. It was really like a uniform and I couldn't stand the sight of the thing after a couple of days. The English are more hesitant to copy new looks. English style is all about classic and the only thing the add is the famous "twist".

Learn to give your dress some twist.

Style is usually something you acquire rather than being born with it.

It is impossible to acquire style. Style is absolutely something one is born with since genuine style is individual and the code is provided to each of us at birth. We can develop our own style over time by defining it clearly and attractively, without shame or fear.

Style is very much about copying and imitating….. So dressing with style is a mixture of copying and making the best of one's abilities.

The second half of the comment gets closer to the heart of things. Style can’t be copied, nor can imitations that ring true be purchased.

When I was 21 I tried to look exactly like the Englishmen I admired. Some were characters on TV like John Steed or Siegfried Farnon, others were people from real life that I had seen on the street or in books. Then I started to discover Ivy League looks. Later there was a time in my life when I got in touch with Italian style which brought some new influences. Now I no longer try to look like an Englishman or American or Italian. I am what I am and I don't need to hide this fact by dressing like a Sloane Ranger or someone who lives in Naples. Stylish men in Germany have great difficulties accepting the fact that they are still Germans

Imagine the expense of the English, Ivy League, Television characters, Italian and Neapolitan garb when all one had to do is be oneself. His conclusion is instructive and should help many of you avoid the unnecessary expense of costume. Understand at a young age that “you are who you are” and know that you cannot hide that through dressing, you can only display it attractively.

I always had the impression that Mr. Roetzel came from the “you can buy style” side of the aisle. After all his very successful books were basically shopping guides highlighting best in class products. The success of this shopping style of writing continues today because 99% of men believe that by copying, imitating and buying things they can embody style. They can’t and don’t.

I find Mr. Roetzel’s admission of erring in the sartorial jungle in the quest for something he would have found in the mirror at home, refreshing, instructive and honest.

alden wrote:
It is impossible to acquire style. Style is absolutely something one is born with since genuine style is individual and the code is provided to each of us at birth. We can develop our own style over time by defining it clearly and attractively, without shame or fear.

I need to purchase a look, sort of the 'no money, no style, but well intentioned' look and I need it fast.

Birth parents no help on this account. No combination to the code, either.

What do you recommend, Dr.??

Excellent remarks. I don't believe Mr Roetzel is a member, so let me try to defend his position.

The book Gentleman doesn't state that one can buy style. It simply tells about classic clothes and accessories in the male wardrobe. I don't find any other modern book on the market that do the same in such a comprehensive manner. I don't see anything misleading in showing gear and garments that historically has been used by many stylish men. The book is a good start for discovering the world of fine clothes and finding your own style.

Concerning style, it is very close to a fact that we acquire most of it, and that we do copy a lot, consciously or unconsciously. To my knowledge, nobody has yet arrived to this world in a lounge suit and welted shoes. I think that is Mr Roetzel's prosaic view. He doesn't deny that great style or true style must be your own style, in that way that it bears your signature and refines your appearance. In reality that seems to be his very point.

I need to purchase a look, sort of the 'no money, no style, but well intentioned' look and I need it fast.Birth parents no help on this account. No combination to the code, either.
What do you recommend, Dr.??

UC

This is clearly a rhetorical question. But if it is not, then it points out an interesting fact: sometimes men who possess style do not realize it themselves and keep searching for something that is their birthright. In the process of the searching, they actually mask and dilute the style that would otherwise be theirs.

Michelangelo gave us the metaphor of cleaning away the superfluous marble to reveal the sculpture underneath. Orson Welles picked up the thought when giving advice to actors saying that performing in character is like sculpture, you need to pare away everything in you that is “not” the character.

My prescription to you would be along the same lines, ditch the superfluous, the ornament born of will. You have it, whether you realize it or not, so just let it happen. Does it sound so impossible to achieve? It isn’t. What shocks you is that you have been told your entire life that the way to create an attractive aura and style is by “adding” not removing things. You have been trained to build. Break the habit, it leads no where.

Here is another way of thinking about it. I once had the chance to have golf lessons from a very famous teaching professional. This teacher had a few amateur clients, like myself, and one of them was a successful businessman who was a terrible golfer. The golfer came for lessons every week and the pro put his swing on video every week.

One day, seeing the poor fellow was making zero progress, I noticed that the videos revealed that despite years of lessons, the players swing had not changed even a bit. “Can someone learn the golf swing?,” I asked the pro, pointing to the videos. “No”, he replied, “a golf swing is born and if there are enough elements we can try to make it better. But this fellow has lessons because for the rest of the week, he will believe in himself, believe in the lesson he has had, and with the added confidence, he might play a bit better and enjoy himself. That is about all I can do for him.” It was a truthful admission, but one that does not sell golf instruction books, of which this pro was an author.

Fashion and consuming are the dope that gives most men the illusion of style, one that viewed on the video scope of truth does not exist. It is a harmless placebo that employs people and creates wealth, so what harm is there?

Finally, I hope I have provided no answers to your questions, because I do not think answers really exist, only clues, traces. In any case, reflections and wanderings about a mystery are much more satisfying than imagined absolutes and rules that ring false.

Follow your first instincts in everything completely. That’s your lesson for this week. Now go out there and play well!

Cheers

Marcelo recently sent me a copy of a fascinating book called Enjoyment.The Moral Significance of Styles of Life, by John Kekes (Clarendon Press, 2008) and, reading the above exchanges, I was reminded of the following passage. I am sure that the 'IT' factor or whatever one wants to call it is a little more elusive than "our beliefs emotions and motives" but, nevertheless, it is a thought-provoking piece. I also just add that I think that Michael's analogy with the amateur golfer is spot on: if it just isn't there then either not trying at all or even trying too hard, will not improve things!

"Just how do we make our beliefs, emotions, and motives coherent?
The beginning of an answer is what I have attributed earlier to Aristotle:
life is made enjoyable by the unimpeded activities of our natural state.¹⁸
To understand how this might help to achieve coherence, we need to
understand what our natural state is. We all start out in life with what might
be called a field of psychological capacities.¹⁹ Some of them are universally
human, others vary with individuals as a result of genetic differences. At
an early age, we are, of course, not aware of having these capacities; they
are merely there available for development. Coming to maturity involves
developing some of these capacities, but not others.
Consider, for instance, the universal human capacity to use language.
Normal human beings develop it, and the failure to do so is a deficiency.

36 Styles of Life
But how we develop it is not up to us, because in our social context there
is a particular language and becoming a language-user is to learn to use
that one. Learning it will not determine what we want to say, but it will
determine how we can say whatever we want. The language gives form
and sets limits to how and what we may wish to express by its means. The
development of many of our capacities proceeds analogously. Our social
context provides the conventional forms and limits, and we pour into them
the previously inexpressible and inchoate content. These conventions are at
once necessary and limiting: necessary because without them our capacities
are unconscious, undifferentiated, and unrealized possibilities, and limiting
because their differentiation and realization are dictated by the forms the
ambient conventions provide. This is how our attitudes to sex, illness, love,
work, competition, conflict, pleasure, discipline, and so on are formed.
These conventions are likely to enable the development and expression
of universal human capacities without great difficulty because the same
forms will fit everyone. It would be amazing, however, if the same were
true of individually variable capacities. Our talents, tastes, preferences, levels
of energy, temperaments, intelligence, sensitivity, pain thresholds, and so
on are likely to differ as a result of genetic differences. And these differences
are likely to become greater because our early experiences will affect their
development in different ways. The fit between individual capacities and
available conventions, therefore, is likely to be imperfect.
If what is likely occurs and we encounter this imperfect fit between our
capacities and conventions, we have two options. One is to make do as
well as we can with the resulting tension. The other is to try to resolve the
tension through reciprocal adjustments of our capacities and conventions.
The first will result in our inability to develop and express some of our
capacities to a sufficient extent. The activities of our natural state will thus
be impeded, and we will unavoidably find this frustrating. Our beliefs,
emotions, and motives about our capacities will have different objects and
will move us in different directions, because the conventional forms for
fusing them are lacking. The resulting attitude to life will be incoherent.
The other option is to create the forms that the available conventions
failed to do. We can do this by adapting conventions to fit better our
individual capacities and adapting individual capacities to fit better into
the adapted conventions. The sign of success is that our beliefs, emotions,
and motives become largely overlapping. And they will be that if we have

Pursuing our Own Good 37
succeeded in adjusting conventions that permit the unimpeded exercise
of our natural individual capacities. We will, then, do what we want to
do, our actions will express our individuality by exercising our individual
capacities, and we will find that as enjoyable as we find it miserable to be
impeded in their exercise.
All this depends on our success in creating for ourselves the forms that
allow the expression of our individuality. Those who succeed have what I
mean by a style of life, and those who fail or do not try lack it. Having it
makes life enjoyable and lacking it makes life miserable. And having it is to
acquire that highly desirable possession that Montaigne calls knowing how
to enjoy our being rightfully; that Hume thinks of as the manner that is no
inconsiderable part of personal merit; that Mill regards as being the right
manner of men; and that Nietzsche says is the key to attaining satisfaction
with oneself."

Excellent remarks. I don't believe Mr Roetzel is a member, so let me try to defend his position.

It is impossible to defend a rampart that is not under siege.

The book Gentleman doesn't state that one can buy style. It simply tells about classic clothes and accessories in the male wardrobe. I don't find any other modern book on the market that do the same in such a comprehensive manner. I don't see anything misleading in showing gear and garments that historically has been used by many stylish men. The book is a good start for discovering the world of fine clothes and finding your own style.

I think that is a fair statement, my point was that the success of the book (I have a friend who has 5 copies of it in five languages) validates the modern trend of thought that style can be bought. I don’t think it can be.

I think the proof of this statement is incontrovertible. The amount of personal wealth that exists today is unlike any other time in human history. So if style could be bought there is liquidity around to buy it. There is also an offering in terms of fashion and clothes available at a click’s distance like no other time in history. So there is more than enough cash to buy and an even greater supply of clothes. And yet we live in the most style impoverished time since the Neolithic period, since cave men trod the earth!

If style could be bought with such wealth, we would expect to see it, no? I am not the only commentator to mention that living between such places as London, Paris and Italy I might expect to see some style if it was there. But if I see a dozen stylish men in a year, I would have hit a rich vein. It rarely happens. Uppercase has reported the same thing recently about London.

Maybe things are different in Denmark or Hamburg. I don’t travel to those places so I don’t pretend to know.

Concerning style, it is very close to a fact that we acquire most of it, and that we do copy a lot, consciously or unconsciously. To my knowledge, nobody has yet arrived to this world in a lounge suit and welted shoes. I think that is Mr Roetzel's prosaic view. He doesn't deny that great style or true style must be your own style, in that way that it bears your signature and refines your appearance. In reality that seems to be his very point.

Instinctively, Mr. Roetzel, can you see that you immediately equate style with clothes? I don’t think “a lounge suit or welted shoes” guarantee style; better for us to be born as we are, naked and insouciant, and then impair ourselves as best we can until death.

My experience and observation in life has taught me that style is an internal event that is revealed externally in all one does, including, but not limited to, how one dresses.

Cheers

Michael Alden

alden wrote:

Excellent remarks. I don't believe Mr Roetzel is a member, so let me try to defend his position.

It is impossible to defend a rampart that is not under siege.

I'm a fan of Baron von Münchhausen.

the modern trend of thought that style can be bought. I don’t think it can be

It's difficult to disagree on that. The whole fashion industry is based on the conviction that one can buy style.

alden wrote:

Concerning style, it is very close to a fact that we acquire most of it, and that we do copy a lot, consciously or unconsciously. To my knowledge, nobody has yet arrived to this world in a lounge suit and welted shoes. I think that is Mr Roetzel's prosaic view. He doesn't deny that great style or true style must be your own style, in that way that it bears your signature and refines your appearance. In reality that seems to be his very point.

Instinctively, Mr. Roetzel, can you see that you immediately equate style with clothes? I don’t think “a lounge suit or welted shoes” guarantee style; better for us to be born as we are, naked and insouciant, and then impair ourselves as best we can until death.

Evidently, you cannot equate a person's style with clothes. The smile, eyes, manners, wit, voice and so much more are parts of the picture that you paint. My point (and maybe Mr. Roetzel's point) is that we inherite most of our garments, ideas about details, and dressing styles. They come to us from an outside world, and we are very much bounded by that heritage. "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an nightmare on the brains of the living." [Karl Marx]

Gruto wrote: "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an nightmare on the brains of the living." [Karl Marx]

That, surely, depends on whether those traditions had any worth, according to the reasonable determination of their inheritors, as well as their own wit and will, within reasonable limits, to be themselves (the thrust, I think, of the extract that I posted above). I should say that I prefer the more hopeful Yeats, in A Prayer For My Daughter; especially in the last verse, to anything that Karl Marx ever wrote! -

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poe ... rayer.html

Thanks, NJS and Marcelo, for the extract from (and citation of) Kekes. I think the analogy with language is extremely apt in suggesting the relationship between largely inherited external forms and conventions and individual capacity and inclination. LIke one's dress and deportment, one's language can be deployed with style, or not. The capacity to become a poet of the caliber of Yeats is inborn, not acquired; however the realization of that capacity (as he himself attested) requires study and application.

Despite the originality of his thought, Yeats was conservative in his choice of forms. Late in life he suggested why he had not followed his fellow modernists in adopting free verse, but instead continued to employ traditional prosody: "All that is personal soon rots. It must be packed in ice or salt . . . . Ancient salt is the best packing."

I'll have Kekes out of my university libarary tomorrow. Thanks again.

Actually, couch, you make a better point out of Yeats than I had thought existed. I had intended the poem to stand as an argument for the maintenance of some custom and ceremony in human life but, of course, there is, in his poems, the extraordinary expression in language which, as you point out, is rendered in familiar forms. I don't mean to go on and start raising hackles over 'tradition' for those who suspect it as an impediment to originality but it is worth noting, first, that a tradition is that which is handed down from generation to generation, relating to statements, beliefs and practices and, secondly, that the Communist 'tradition' (including a rejection of tradition, if I may say that without appearing self-contradictory), crumbled in less than a century. Of all traditions, language is the most important human tool and, refreshingly, it does not cease to be a tradition just because lexicographers are giving us supplements to important dictionaries at an incredible rate; reflecting the acceptance of new words and phrases and even changes in meaning.

This practice of innovation and change is reflected, to some extent, by practices in dressing which are generally observed and especially observed by those in positions of authority and influence. But we are still left with the fact that if you give a great tailor cloth to make a suit for man A, who knows what he wants and what feels is best for him and gives clear instructions, and the same type of cloth to a mediocre tailor to make a suit for man B who thinks that it is enough to have a good cloth and any bespoke tailor and just let the tailor do as he pleases, man A is going to emerge smiling with enjoyment and man B (if he emerges smiling at all) emerges smiling because he knows no better. Man A started with the advantages of:realization that a great tailor is going to do a better job than a mediocre one and self-knowledge. To have got to this stage, there must have been something inherent in man A that took him to an experience that man B will never know. Whether 'bliss is ignorance' in man B's situation is a different question.

It is man A's inherent desire for the quest, self-knowledge and appreciation of the best that makes him well-dressed.
NJS

alden wrote:
My experience and observation in life has taught me that style is an internal event that is revealed externally in all one does, including, but not limited to, how one dresses.

Cheers

Michael Alden

Individual Style: is this why 2 men using the same tailor can come out with entirely different results?

Individual Style: is this why 2 men using the same tailor can come out with entirely different results?

UC, it is one of the potential explanations.

If you sit around listening to tailors long enough, you will know there are customers they love to serve, others they are neutral about and those they would love to use the iron on. If you are loved, you may get that little bit more. It is a possibility. And some men will wear an identical suit better than another. Its a fact.

I know its something no one wants to hear (again), but the man does make the suit. The only other commentator to make the point is long since buried, but Brummel said the same thing.

It's not a fashionable, commercially feasible or politically correct thing to say, and that is probably why it must be true.

Cheers

Michael

alden wrote:Michelangelo gave us the metaphor of cleaning away the superfluous marble to reveal the sculpture underneath. Orson Welles picked up the thought when giving advice to actors saying that performing in character is like sculpture, you need to pare away everything in you that is “not” the character.

My prescription to you would be along the same lines, ditch the superfluous, the ornament born of will. You have it, whether you realize it or not, so just let it happen.

Sergiu Celibidache, the conductor who made the productions of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra so famous, would say all the time that you don't MAKE music, you just let it happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiM0Yr4c ... re=related
If you don't have the patience to watch the whole 10 minutes (fascinating to me!), just go to 9:30 and listen to his final words.
Then go here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXNVDCNu ... re=related
at 2:30 and again listen to what he says. Doesn't it sound familiar?

He says somewhere else that, when he gives a concert, he is not at all interested in demonstrating that he has attained a certain level, but rather in putting into evidence those elements that make it possible for others to share in the same sphere.

True, Costi, and, here, from the same source (what would we do without it?), are Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry; introducing the Argentine Tango to the USA and Europe. The most touching thing about this, for me, is that Alice Terry died, of a botched operation, before the film was even released. Make sure that you get through the opening couple of minutes because that is not Valentino dancing...It is (although crackly and with superimposed music), possibly one of the most influential pieces of cinematic footage of all time. Brummell was not the first 'celebrity' as, sometimes, cheaply suggested. He was primus inter pares amongst a small, and comparatively unknown, elite. Valentino and Alice Terry were, probably, the first 'celebrities' as we understand the word - although with a great deal more on offer than the moderns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7RCRlnsbe0

NJS