Boyer on dressing and Gary Cooper

[Gruto]

I was preparing an article for a newspaper about the way we use the suit nowadays, and I saw it as an opportunity for contacting G. Bruce Boyer. I have always enjoyed his learned and unforced writing on dressing. I think that a couple of his answers to me could be of interest to other LL members:

How should the occasion influence dressing?

I believe the occasion, the audience, and the purpose of the event should dictate our dress, as it should our speech and demeanor. But today I’m fearful that we have lost all sense of occasion. I see men attending weddings, funerals, and other traditionally special events wearing the same thing they wear to football games or the supermarket: hyper-designed sports shoes, T-shirts, and cargo pants. It indicates to me that there is nothing special for us, our daily lives are all one seamless whole. Marriage has no special happiness and death has no solemnity, and we are completely unmoored from the mystery and traditional humanity of occasion. Everything is ours, and nothing is special.

How would you compare Gary Cooper with Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Duke of Windsor and Gianni Agnelli in terms of dressing?

The main difference between Gary Cooper on the one hand, and Astaire, Grant, Windsor, and Agnelli on the other is that Cooper was able to wear a much greater range of clothing with conviction. Try to picture Astaire in cowboy clothes or Agnelli in a soldiers uniform, or Grant in buckskins. These men were all great formal dressers — Astaire, in my opinion, the greatest — but none could wear casual or work clothes effectively. Cooper related to clothes across a great spectrum of genres. He had been born in the West and grew up around cowboys and Indians, but he also had a formal Edwardian English education at a fine school in England, lived in Rome for a time, and was as at home and ease in cowboy boots and jeans as he was in white tie and tails. He wore Greek sandals and South Seas sarongs, jeans, and Mexican festival shirts, and of course sophisticated suits from Savile Row and Beverly Hills. He was, in this respect, the first completely international man with a global sensibility for appearance.

[alden]

We have clearly become dislodged from the notion of etiquette as it applies to the way we dress for “weddings, funerals, and other traditionally special events” in a way that was unthinkable even twenty years ago. What the factors are that drive men and women to downplay special events these days are many but the distancing from the “mystery and traditional humanity” of life itself is clearly chief among them. It’s not just about a general lack of respect for important occasions it is a much deeper than that.

As regards Cooper, he was as natural a force as can be imagined. All the men mentioned had great charisma, but there was something about Cooper's presence that was so very crystalline. Astaire's and Windsor's will was often at play and visible in styles that were sometimes forced. That is something you do not see in Cooper. The other personality with this kind of presence was Clark Gable. (Bruce, another idea for a book? )

Cheers

[hectorm]

How would you compare Gary Cooper with Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Duke of Windsor and Gianni Agnelli in terms of dressing?

The main difference between Gary Cooper on the one hand, and Astaire, Grant, Windsor, and Agnelli on the other is that Cooper was able to wear a much greater range of clothing with conviction.

Mr. Boyer's answer is brilliant, demonstrating once more his keen eye.
Instead of the common place of comparing different styles that have been revisited once and again, he takes one step back and is able to identify two new and well defined categories: wide and narrow range (with conviction) wearers. Not arbitrary, not obscure, simple and clear. Brilliant.

[Bwooster]

How would you compare Gary Cooper with Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Duke of Windsor and Gianni Agnelli in terms of dressing?

The main difference between Gary Cooper on the one hand, and Astaire, Grant, Windsor, and Agnelli on the other is that Cooper was able to wear a much greater range of clothing with conviction.

I agree this answer is fantastic, and Mr. Boyer has probably forgotten more than I could ever know on men's fashion, but I am surprised Agnelli was included in that group. I had previously thought of his style as a European version of Cooper's; that is, worldly through the prism of Italian style as Cooper's is through American, not to mention both were handsome and confident enough to get away with a lot of eccentricity. Il Avoccato could pull off Western style denim on denim, along with a lot of US and UK inspired clothing choices, and could, in fact, pull off a uniform as he was in the military. No, I doubt Agnelli would wear espadrilles with legs straps, but not sure Cooper would wear the ski attire in the top photo either. I think they had the same versatility in dress, both formal and informal, albeit Agnelli perhaps had a more monotoned color palette. I wonder if they were friends...Also, a Clark Gable book would be great!

[hectorm]

Il Avoccato could pull off Western style denim on denim, along with a lot of US and UK inspired clothing choices, and could, in fact, pull off a uniform as he was in the military.

Like surely most of the LL members I´m a fan of Agnelli's style too. But sincerely, I do not think he was very successful pulling off this particular denim on denim rumpled look. Wearing boxers instead of briefs, a wide open designer shirt collar, mmmmmhhhhh...
And regarding the man in a uniform the only thing I could say is that if I ever go to war I would hope my enemies are as fierce as l'Avvocato looks here.
It might be, as Bwooster says, that he has to be seen through the prism of Italian style. But for me, give me Agnelli in Caraceni (so I put him on Boyer's second wagon of narrow rangers).

[Bwooster]

And regarding the man in a uniform the only thing I could say is that if I ever go to war I would hope my enemies are as fierce as l'Avvocato looks here.

I agree with that statement, actually (I'd also hopefully never be so close to my enemy as to admire his high armholes either!). Dashing, perhaps, but not intimidating.
I do like Agnelli's denim on denim, and sometimes do the same with a tweed, but being 26 in NYC, it is still more classic than what the majority of my friends wear. I think the tone on tone is flattering and find it works for casual day wear. My father thinks I look like a fool though, and to me, he belongs in this pantheon of super stylish men, so perhaps I'll get wiser soon enough...but not yet. Regardless, I do love these cyber conversations.

[Gruto]

Mr. Boyer added a reflection about style and fashion ...

How does a well dressed man relate to fashion and the Zeitgeist?

There’s a difference between style and fashion. Fashion is that which comes and goes from one season to the next, it refuses to recognize the individual, and it’s by far the most costly way to dress. Style, on the other hand, is personally cultivated over years of introspection, is perhaps more concerned with quality and taste than the vagaries of a particular time, and speaks to those qualities which we consider to be of an individual nature: personality, idiosyncrasy, and freedom from coercion. To not consider the age in which one lives is to wear costume, but to consider only what others wear is to become a slave to conformity. The 18th Century English poet Alexander Pope said, “Be not the first on whom the new is tried/ Nor the last to lay the old aside.” Good advice.

[hectorm]

I do like Agnelli's denim on denim, and sometimes do the same with a tweed, but being 26 in NYC, it is still more classic than what the majority of my friends wear. I think the tone on tone is flattering and find it works for casual day wear. My father thinks I look like a fool though

Dear Bwooster: father knows best, particularly when he is -as you recognized- a member of the clan of elegant gentlemen.
Denim on denim is very appropriate for a ranch environment mending fences but you can do much better for your "rus in urbe" in NYC. Don´t worry about being the "more classic of the majority of your friends".
Boyer´s advice -brought up by Gruto- is very relevant in this case.

[NJS]

I agree with most of the above posts but I don´t agree that Windsor was less adroit in carrying off a variety of dress than Cooper. Possibly, few men in history have ever carried off with such aplomb as Windsor, especially in the course of his tours around the Empire, as PoW, such a variety of dress. He could wear this:
http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/image ... oy3G5Oh4xN
and this:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REaOCQRQX98/T ... rdVII_.jpg
and this:
http://www.xtimeline.com/__UserPic_Larg ... 514602.JPG
as well as all the other naval and military uniforms and ordinary mufti.

Mind you, I accept that there are different national perceptions, most evident in the suggestion that Astaire might have been a greater formal dresser than Windsor...

[Testudo_Aubreii]

I think the first and the third answer are keen apercus. "Everything is ours, and nothing is special." "To not consider the age in which one lives is to wear costume, but to consider only what others wear is to become a slave to conformity." Perceptive, true, pithy, and well-balanced.

I think Mr. Boyer's love of bold generalizations has gotten away with him in his second answer: "[Astaire, Agnelli, Grant] none could wear casual or work clothes effectively." I think this confuses a lack of evidence with a lack of ability. Just because we don't often see them doing it doesn't mean they couldn't do it, as BW's and NJS's photos show. There are also photos of Agnelli at his desk wearing jeans. Grant could certainly wear tennis costume or sweaters.