The London Lounge

Companies should replace "Dress-Down Fridays" with 'Dress Brown Fridays" ...

Simon A wrote:Companies should replace "Dress-Down Fridays" with 'Dress Brown Fridays" ...

I like that idea a lot.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

Point very well made, Michael. With imagination, humor and style.
The "dresstapo" comment was very funny in this context, although -sadly- real state-sponsored vicious "dresstapos" still exist in this world.

On this occasion, the functionaries have been directed not to issue a ticket but just to let you off with a caution.

No, seriously: I think that the 'rule' / custom of 'no brown in town' is often over-stated and I can understand the impatience with it. It all flows from a lack of specificity. In certain London-based professions and amongst certain London City workers and in London's fuggier clubs, there is an undoubted (and enduring) custom to wear grey or blue suits and black shoes. However, not everyone in 'town' is so engaged and even those that are, say walking in the parks, are free of these customary constraints. I did, I think, recently, set the record straight on my previous statements on this. I have to say that, walking in a London or Parisian Park, there cannot be many who could match the style of your outfit in this video.

Brown suits (for some reason), just don't suit me and I wouldn't have one but there are plenty of men whom they do suit.

Of course, the greatest renegade of them all was Noel Coward, with his brown dinner jackets; hands raised in benediction, regaling them with his songs, at the Cafe de Paris in Leicester Square and in Las Vegas.

NJS wrote:
Of course, the greatest renegade of them all was Noel Coward, with his brown dinner jackets; hands raised in benediction, regaling them with his songs, at the Cafe de Paris in Leicester Square and in Las Vegas.

Brown in town, and in many other places. Dinner jackets or lounge suits.

Apparently, Coward (who was a live entertainer and not a stockbroker), felt that brown was a warm colour in which to face his audience; sometimes this is an idea taken up by other live entertainers. The top (inverted) still is from 'Boom'; I am not sure of the other picture.

Point very well made, Michael. With imagination, humor and style.
The "dresstapo" comment was very funny in this context, although -sadly- real state-sponsored vicious "dresstapos" still exist in this world.

Hectorm

Thank you.

The idea for my video was the Hitchcock theme...innocent guy walks along street, is confronted by a menacing figure, a mystery, learns he is accused of a crime, at first he rebels, then acquiesces, then physically and dramatically resists leading to his freedom and moral of story.

My acting coach was pleased with the character I developed and said it reminded him very much of a famous Broadway play called Harvey about a man whose best friend is a six foot three inch rabbit. (You might recall the film "Harvey" with the great Jimmy Stewart.)

Well Hitchcock and Harvey both start with an H. My actor's ego got a good deflating. It was like shooting for King Lear and winding up with Bugs Bunny…but I will take the good review and accept it as a learning experience.

The truth is that the state sponsored dresstapo are often found in the home or near it. Mom, wife, sister and girlfriend can be terrible inquisitors! And men come to heel early in life under their sartorial supervision.

The sad thing is that I see so many men who want to maximize their personalities wearing someone else’s clothes and being terribly ill at ease in them. It is hard to exude masculine charm if you are squirming in your skin.

Cheers

Michael

alden wrote:The idea for my video was the Hitchcock theme...innocent guy walks along street, is confronted by a menacing figure, a mystery, learns he is accused of a crime, at first he rebels, then acquiesces, then physically and dramatically resists leading to his freedom and moral of story.

My acting coach was pleased with the character I developed and said it reminded him very much of a famous Broadway play called Harvey about a man whose best friend is a six foot three inch rabbit. (You might recall the film "Harvey" with the great Jimmy Stewart.)

Well Hitchcock and Harvey both start with an H. My ego got a good deflating. It was like shooting for King Lear and winding up with Bugs Bunny…but I will take the good review and accept it as a learning experience.

It struck me that this is by far the best performance (if may use that word ) that I have watched at Dress with style until now. Very convincing, especially the first part.

No, seriously: I think that the 'rule' / custom of 'no brown in town' is often over-stated and I can understand the impatience with it. It all flows from a lack of specificity. In certain London-based professions and amongst certain London City workers and in London's fuggier clubs, there is an undoubted (and enduring) custom to wear grey or blue suits and black shoes. However, not everyone in 'town' is so engaged and even those that are, say walking in the parks, are free of these customary constraints. I did, I think, recently, set the record straight on my previous statements on this. I have to say that, walking in a London or Parisian Park, there cannot be many who could match the style of your outfit in this video.

Brown suits (for some reason), just don't suit me and I wouldn't have one but there are plenty of men whom they do suit.

NJS

Thank you.

I would rather a man decide not to wear brown because it does not suit him rather than feel compelled to eschew the color for the misunderstanding of very geographically specific (London) custom.

The problem is that these barbs of rules tend to float on the surface of things and men snap on and become ensnared by them. I know the real import of the brown in town rule so do you, but many men do not. Well, if they read the LL or watch DWS they will.

One word of caution: choose the shade of brown for a suit carefully. Charles Revson would have been correct had he said "a man in a brown suit risks looking like s..!"

PS Coward looks terrific. Windsor in a green dinner suit and Coward in a brown one. Who would have guessed?

Cheers

Michael

absolutely love that suit

the dictum of "no brown in town" is almost entirely irrelevant.
in todays informal and casual environment any decent fitting suit makes its wearer look better
dressed than 90%..and any sports/odd jacket and trousers puts a man at about the 75th percentile

perhaps brown is still unexpected in private banking and courtrooms thats about it

That's a good looking suit. The copper tie makes it pop beautifully.

I see that you're cutting them higher and tighter now. Same as the Sicilian grey. What's the thinking behind that?

Good acting job. You missed your calling.

alden wrote: Well Hitchcock and Harvey both start with an H. My actor's ego got a good deflating. It was like shooting for King Lear and winding up with Bugs Bunny…but I will take the good review and accept it as a learning experience.
Cheers
Michael

Bugs Bunny is great in his own way, even if he isnt king lear

Merc wrote:absolutely love that suit

the dictum of "no brown in town" is almost entirely irrelevant.
in todays informal and casual environment any decent fitting suit makes its wearer look better
dressed than 90%..and any sports/odd jacket and trousers puts a man at about the 75th percentile

perhaps brown is still unexpected in private banking and courtrooms thats about it

It might be a fading social expectation but what used to called administrative grade civil servants; most MPs and their staffs; company directors and middle managers; many in the legal and medical professions and those in the church still often stick to grey and blue whilst at work. However, there is an interesting story about the Rev Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875), vicar of Morwenstow, in Cornwall: his clothes included - a claret coloured clerical coat, a blue jersey (sewn with a red cross to suggest the centurion's spear in Christ's side) and long sea boots. Famous for writing The Song of The Western Men and for the introduction of Harvest Festival services in Church of England churches, he dested black so much that the mourners at his funeral wore purple instead.

It's time we all should be free to wear purple, if we so wish, as per the recommendations of Jenny Joseph...and ignore the negative influences of the Dresstapo!

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

....and that includes wearing brown in town!