I actually posted a comment on the home page section dealing with the study of elegance. I hope my post doesn't sound too simple minded. I am anxious to hear the members' views on the question of timeless style vrs. stylish times.
Cheers.
A Study of Elegance Part II
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Guest
Fashion and Mode.
"Fashion is what goes out of Fashion", said Coco Chanel.
Fashion is what is created in Marketing departments driven by managers with fierce intensity to ensnare the unwitting and add significant value to shareholder equity.
Mode is the manner in which Elegance is embodied in any epoch. Clearly it is not the manner of men today to wear Doublets, powdered wigs and rouge. These accessories are not consistent with today's Mode. It is, however, consistent with today's Mode, born in the early years of the last century, for men to wear jackets, trousers, overcoats, and neckties etc.
Fashion follows in the sillage of Mode sniffing the air with flared nostrils tracking Opportunity. Mode saunters jauntily forward oblivious to Fashion's snooping presence.
"Elegance has one mode, ugliness has a thousand." H. de Balzac
Elegance is timeless. Mode evolves, as it is the manner in which, in any period of time, Elegance is embodied. Fashion is fleeting, so many grains of sand in the wind.
Elegance is immediately recognizable as is its contrary state. It always has been and always will be so. There were undoubtedly Adams who had a particularly brilliant way of donning a fig leaf. Of the thousands in Balzac's time who pretended to Elegance, there were probably only a few who were destined to embody it. The same is true today. There is no reason to feel conspicuous by dressing well, according to the Mode of the time, because others do not do so.
Today's fashion, in one of its current manifestations, accords to gym clothes the stature of dress. That does not change the Mode a whit. One lives today in the suit and sport coat continuum even if Fashion has distracted most away from the mark.
Fashion has used the Mode to create the thousand pretenders that pollute the horizon and sting the eye. The suit and sportcoat have been tortured and twisted into unspeakable forms to pay proper dividends to shareholders. Should one to be dupe to same and conform?
"Remember only the dead fish swims with the stream." Malcolm Muggeridge
One is either an individual or not. There are not a lot of shades of gray in this regard.
One acts and dresses accordingly.
M Alden
NB. The original " A study of Elegance II" article is published in the following post.
"Fashion is what goes out of Fashion", said Coco Chanel.
Fashion is what is created in Marketing departments driven by managers with fierce intensity to ensnare the unwitting and add significant value to shareholder equity.
Mode is the manner in which Elegance is embodied in any epoch. Clearly it is not the manner of men today to wear Doublets, powdered wigs and rouge. These accessories are not consistent with today's Mode. It is, however, consistent with today's Mode, born in the early years of the last century, for men to wear jackets, trousers, overcoats, and neckties etc.
Fashion follows in the sillage of Mode sniffing the air with flared nostrils tracking Opportunity. Mode saunters jauntily forward oblivious to Fashion's snooping presence.
"Elegance has one mode, ugliness has a thousand." H. de Balzac
Elegance is timeless. Mode evolves, as it is the manner in which, in any period of time, Elegance is embodied. Fashion is fleeting, so many grains of sand in the wind.
Elegance is immediately recognizable as is its contrary state. It always has been and always will be so. There were undoubtedly Adams who had a particularly brilliant way of donning a fig leaf. Of the thousands in Balzac's time who pretended to Elegance, there were probably only a few who were destined to embody it. The same is true today. There is no reason to feel conspicuous by dressing well, according to the Mode of the time, because others do not do so.
Today's fashion, in one of its current manifestations, accords to gym clothes the stature of dress. That does not change the Mode a whit. One lives today in the suit and sport coat continuum even if Fashion has distracted most away from the mark.
Fashion has used the Mode to create the thousand pretenders that pollute the horizon and sting the eye. The suit and sportcoat have been tortured and twisted into unspeakable forms to pay proper dividends to shareholders. Should one to be dupe to same and conform?
"Remember only the dead fish swims with the stream." Malcolm Muggeridge
One is either an individual or not. There are not a lot of shades of gray in this regard.
One acts and dresses accordingly.
M Alden
NB. The original " A study of Elegance II" article is published in the following post.
Last edited by Guest on Fri Jul 29, 2005 11:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Guest
Aphorism XLII
“The brute covers himself, the rich man and the fop adorn themselves, the elegant man dresses!"
The ugly, the bad and the good: Balzac has Sergio Leone’s order reversed in his Brute, Rich/Fop and Elegant dressing formula, one that remains perfectly measured for today’s reality. We will explore it in this installment of our discussion.
The Brute
Here we have to distinguish between two species of Brutes. Firstly, there are those who will never have an understanding of elegant living, dress or dressing as their lives are bound up every hour in questions of survival. They dress to protect their bodies from the elements and for their long days of labor.
The elegant being does not look down upon or render judgments on the less fortunate. In the elegant life empathy and above all, generosity are cherished qualities and snobbery is despised above all things.
The second species of Brute is separated for eternity from elegance because of constraints that are not as easily pardoned as they are largely self imposed. For the purpose of this discussion we will name this creature "Troggie" which is short for troglodyte, denizen of caves and the darkest bolgias of dressing perdition.
The Troggie's eyes are forever shielded from visions of grace and elegance by an ever enshrouding ego. In the absence of being born with good taste, the chances of a Troggie "learning" anything is mathematically calculated at nil. The Troggie doesn't need to learn, since he knows everything already. And what he knows is necessarily ugly.
Our dear Troggie is omnipresent in the Dressing world and his ilk dominate many dressing forums these days. Armed with platitudes and self assurance, his kind can be seen and heard from miles away. Loud, and opinionated to the point of violence, his clothes are invariably loud, ill-fitting, badly composed, and irretrievably imbalanced. This is the essence of "Troggie Style."
Rich Man and the Fop.
Balzac does not mean to infer that a rich man has as much chance to enter the kingdom of elegance, as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. No, quite to the contrary, wealth never bothered the author terribly except for his lack of same due to an incorrigible determination to live well beyond his means, in a constant state of debt. Wealth in and of itself was not the problem. The new possessors of wealth, the "nouveau riches" of Balzac's time were the problem.
Balzac pretty much despised the "bourgeoisie" of his time , both the "grand" and "petit" flavors, that had replaced the decimated aristocracy after the "French Massacre" (one can hardly think of it as a Revolution) and the despotism of Napoleon.
Unlike Balzac we are fortunate to live in a time when the "nouveau riches" worship brands, labels, and logos. As such we are lucky not to find many of them in our tailor's ateliers though Balzac, poor fellow, would certainly have seen the lot of them in his.
These troggie-like creatures conceive of life as a twenty four hour infomercial in which they must manifest their new found good fortune to as many people as possible, in the shortest time possible and in the most conspicuous manner imaginable. Whole industries of luxury (sic) goods producers have been created to separate these people from some of their new found wealth. Not much more needs to be said here.
Fops come in so many sizes, shapes and colors, from pure dullards, to coxcombs, to the " terminally wit challenged" etc. that describing them here would be essentially impossible. Better to read Dante, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson or Balzac for a complete study of same.
The species of Fop that interests us with respect to a discussion of elegance is known in our argot as "Charlie." Blinded by many of the intellectual limitations of a standard, run of the mill Troggie, Charlie has escaped from the deepest pits of bad taste and has seen enough of the light to desire more of its glow. His intense desire, his wanting so badly to appear, to belong, to be something makes him a notorious pretender and notable arriviste. Ambition and ego are his ultimate undoing. And unlike the "rich" of the nouveau riche, he has a decided taste for bespoke.
Spotting Charlie is quite easy and once again there are Charlie channels on the internet where you can listen to their discourse. Charlie knows that elegance exists, he thinks of it as being stylish or beautiful, and therefore desirable. But ornamenting oneself with stylish and beautiful things renders only distant facsimiles of elegance.
Charlie studies everything, and consequently his look is "studied." Charlie conspires to be elegant on the cheap, and his look is cheapened. Charlie does everything he can to imitate the elegant, and his look is an imitation. Charlie asks advice from everyone and anyone, but is incapable of the first step towards elegance which consists in interrogating oneself.
Charlie cannot conceive that elegance radiates from within, and is always seeking the magic pill that will transform him into the prince he imagines lives under the skin of the beast he sees in the mirror each day. To his constant dismay, no artisan possesses the magic formula, the Ring as it were, so he wanders hopelessly to any and all who will take him as a client. He is always dissatisfied and despite all his travail it never occurs to Charlie to imagine that the magic pill does not exist. It never occurs to him to simply see himself in the mirror, and see a prince if he desires it to be!
There is a second variation on the theme of Charlie, known as "Dandy." Now there are two types of Dandy, one we admire and one we loathe. The former, social critic and rebel, and the latter precious as a lapdog adorned with pink ribbons.
Aphorism XXXIX
"Dandyism is a perversion, a heresy of Elegance."
"In reality Dandyism is studied affectation. In becoming a dandy, a man becomes a piece of bedroom furniture, an elaborated stuffed dummy one can position on a horse or on a couch, one who sucks and bites the end of a cane, but never a thinking being..., this never! The man who only sees dress in dressing is a fool. Elegance does not exclude thought or science; it consecrates them!”, says Balzac.
When Dandyism embodies superficiality, slavish adherence to form over substance, it becomes affectation and ornament. When Dandyism conducts to the highest level of thought, ideas, and creativity in the face of crushing conformity, it is more to our taste. Two contrary states are described by the same word.
Now we have a good idea of what Elegance isn't thanks to our good friends Troggie, Charlie and Dandy. In the next installment we will take a look at how "the elegant man dresses!"
“The brute covers himself, the rich man and the fop adorn themselves, the elegant man dresses!"
The ugly, the bad and the good: Balzac has Sergio Leone’s order reversed in his Brute, Rich/Fop and Elegant dressing formula, one that remains perfectly measured for today’s reality. We will explore it in this installment of our discussion.
The Brute
Here we have to distinguish between two species of Brutes. Firstly, there are those who will never have an understanding of elegant living, dress or dressing as their lives are bound up every hour in questions of survival. They dress to protect their bodies from the elements and for their long days of labor.
The elegant being does not look down upon or render judgments on the less fortunate. In the elegant life empathy and above all, generosity are cherished qualities and snobbery is despised above all things.
The second species of Brute is separated for eternity from elegance because of constraints that are not as easily pardoned as they are largely self imposed. For the purpose of this discussion we will name this creature "Troggie" which is short for troglodyte, denizen of caves and the darkest bolgias of dressing perdition.
The Troggie's eyes are forever shielded from visions of grace and elegance by an ever enshrouding ego. In the absence of being born with good taste, the chances of a Troggie "learning" anything is mathematically calculated at nil. The Troggie doesn't need to learn, since he knows everything already. And what he knows is necessarily ugly.
Our dear Troggie is omnipresent in the Dressing world and his ilk dominate many dressing forums these days. Armed with platitudes and self assurance, his kind can be seen and heard from miles away. Loud, and opinionated to the point of violence, his clothes are invariably loud, ill-fitting, badly composed, and irretrievably imbalanced. This is the essence of "Troggie Style."
Rich Man and the Fop.
Balzac does not mean to infer that a rich man has as much chance to enter the kingdom of elegance, as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. No, quite to the contrary, wealth never bothered the author terribly except for his lack of same due to an incorrigible determination to live well beyond his means, in a constant state of debt. Wealth in and of itself was not the problem. The new possessors of wealth, the "nouveau riches" of Balzac's time were the problem.
Balzac pretty much despised the "bourgeoisie" of his time , both the "grand" and "petit" flavors, that had replaced the decimated aristocracy after the "French Massacre" (one can hardly think of it as a Revolution) and the despotism of Napoleon.
Unlike Balzac we are fortunate to live in a time when the "nouveau riches" worship brands, labels, and logos. As such we are lucky not to find many of them in our tailor's ateliers though Balzac, poor fellow, would certainly have seen the lot of them in his.
These troggie-like creatures conceive of life as a twenty four hour infomercial in which they must manifest their new found good fortune to as many people as possible, in the shortest time possible and in the most conspicuous manner imaginable. Whole industries of luxury (sic) goods producers have been created to separate these people from some of their new found wealth. Not much more needs to be said here.
Fops come in so many sizes, shapes and colors, from pure dullards, to coxcombs, to the " terminally wit challenged" etc. that describing them here would be essentially impossible. Better to read Dante, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson or Balzac for a complete study of same.
The species of Fop that interests us with respect to a discussion of elegance is known in our argot as "Charlie." Blinded by many of the intellectual limitations of a standard, run of the mill Troggie, Charlie has escaped from the deepest pits of bad taste and has seen enough of the light to desire more of its glow. His intense desire, his wanting so badly to appear, to belong, to be something makes him a notorious pretender and notable arriviste. Ambition and ego are his ultimate undoing. And unlike the "rich" of the nouveau riche, he has a decided taste for bespoke.
Spotting Charlie is quite easy and once again there are Charlie channels on the internet where you can listen to their discourse. Charlie knows that elegance exists, he thinks of it as being stylish or beautiful, and therefore desirable. But ornamenting oneself with stylish and beautiful things renders only distant facsimiles of elegance.
Charlie studies everything, and consequently his look is "studied." Charlie conspires to be elegant on the cheap, and his look is cheapened. Charlie does everything he can to imitate the elegant, and his look is an imitation. Charlie asks advice from everyone and anyone, but is incapable of the first step towards elegance which consists in interrogating oneself.
Charlie cannot conceive that elegance radiates from within, and is always seeking the magic pill that will transform him into the prince he imagines lives under the skin of the beast he sees in the mirror each day. To his constant dismay, no artisan possesses the magic formula, the Ring as it were, so he wanders hopelessly to any and all who will take him as a client. He is always dissatisfied and despite all his travail it never occurs to Charlie to imagine that the magic pill does not exist. It never occurs to him to simply see himself in the mirror, and see a prince if he desires it to be!
There is a second variation on the theme of Charlie, known as "Dandy." Now there are two types of Dandy, one we admire and one we loathe. The former, social critic and rebel, and the latter precious as a lapdog adorned with pink ribbons.
Aphorism XXXIX
"Dandyism is a perversion, a heresy of Elegance."
"In reality Dandyism is studied affectation. In becoming a dandy, a man becomes a piece of bedroom furniture, an elaborated stuffed dummy one can position on a horse or on a couch, one who sucks and bites the end of a cane, but never a thinking being..., this never! The man who only sees dress in dressing is a fool. Elegance does not exclude thought or science; it consecrates them!”, says Balzac.
When Dandyism embodies superficiality, slavish adherence to form over substance, it becomes affectation and ornament. When Dandyism conducts to the highest level of thought, ideas, and creativity in the face of crushing conformity, it is more to our taste. Two contrary states are described by the same word.
Now we have a good idea of what Elegance isn't thanks to our good friends Troggie, Charlie and Dandy. In the next installment we will take a look at how "the elegant man dresses!"
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Guest
Dear Mr. Alden,;
Thank you for your considered respose, I'm enjoying myself immensely. If I may persist without seeming obtuse or argumentative? This is a discussion I've been trying to pursue for years. If I'm missing the mark or become tedious, please let me know. I will await further essays with no loss of enthusiasm.
Let's agree that the first step towards elegance is interrogating oneself. One might ask how one might improve his mood, and add just a little beauty to the mundane world he sees outside his door. For I see elegance (at the risk of placing myself squarely in Charlie's camp) as part of a kind of sublime beauty. For example, an elegantly cut jacket over time conforms to the wearer, moving with him and allowing an easy grace to come through --rather than imposing a rigid, military-like bearing. A celebration of the individual, I suppose I could say.
Elegance, then, is an outward expression of the inner man (or woman, of course) that can be enhanced by (among other things) correctly fitted and sublimly coordinated clothing. (Again individual expression.)
Would such an expression be a conscious decision undertaken after intense self-scrutiny? Or does the elegant being exude grace in manner of dress, bearing and discourse without elegance-aforethought? Is it a nautral outcome of an internal "editing?" In which case, we might say the the LL membership is a large percentage of the fortunate few (as you point out) who are destined to embody elegance rather than pretend to it. As most of the membership seeks, without doubt, to be elegantly turned out at all times.
I guess my ramblings have as a common thread the question: why do we seek elegance? What draws the elegant being to begin to examine his aesthetic? And how best to embody that aesthetic? (A cue for your next essay of "how the elegant man dresses." I can't wait.)
Best Regards,
CCox
Thank you for your considered respose, I'm enjoying myself immensely. If I may persist without seeming obtuse or argumentative? This is a discussion I've been trying to pursue for years. If I'm missing the mark or become tedious, please let me know. I will await further essays with no loss of enthusiasm.
Let's agree that the first step towards elegance is interrogating oneself. One might ask how one might improve his mood, and add just a little beauty to the mundane world he sees outside his door. For I see elegance (at the risk of placing myself squarely in Charlie's camp) as part of a kind of sublime beauty. For example, an elegantly cut jacket over time conforms to the wearer, moving with him and allowing an easy grace to come through --rather than imposing a rigid, military-like bearing. A celebration of the individual, I suppose I could say.
Elegance, then, is an outward expression of the inner man (or woman, of course) that can be enhanced by (among other things) correctly fitted and sublimly coordinated clothing. (Again individual expression.)
Would such an expression be a conscious decision undertaken after intense self-scrutiny? Or does the elegant being exude grace in manner of dress, bearing and discourse without elegance-aforethought? Is it a nautral outcome of an internal "editing?" In which case, we might say the the LL membership is a large percentage of the fortunate few (as you point out) who are destined to embody elegance rather than pretend to it. As most of the membership seeks, without doubt, to be elegantly turned out at all times.
I guess my ramblings have as a common thread the question: why do we seek elegance? What draws the elegant being to begin to examine his aesthetic? And how best to embody that aesthetic? (A cue for your next essay of "how the elegant man dresses." I can't wait.)
Best Regards,
CCox
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