Quotations relevant to Style

[Luca]

Quite coincidentally:
'Quality is no accident. It is the result of intelligent effort.'
John Ruskin; taken up, as the company slogan, by Sir Thomas Lipton, of Lipton teas.

I like this! A more elegant version of the City saying: "the harder I work, the luckier I get".

[Costi]

Good luck!

[JCH]

Remember this old quote?

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity – I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly." (Plato, The Republic.)

[davidhuh]

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn."
Gore Vidal

Rest in peace Sir - great obit in the NYT by the way: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books ... .html?_r=1

cheers, david

[lgcintra]

WS: The Winter´s Tale, IV.IV

Shepherd:
"His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely."

[Dr T]

A gentleman will take care that his clothes are of the best quality, well made and suitable for his rank and position - Prince Albert

[Frederic Leighton]

During the war we were very inventive. There was clothes rationing so if I needed an evening dress, it would be made out of blackout or curtain material, which wasn’t on ration. I remember turning up to a dance in a white curtain.

I once got £15 for my birthday, which was a hell of a lot of money in the 1940s. I went with my mother to Selfridges, where there was a sale, and bought a black fur jacket made of skunk. It looked very nice but if it rained, boy, it smelled.

When I came up from Bletchley — where I was a code-breaker — for the night, I’d wear a black dress from Fenwick. I wore it to every nightclub in London, including the 400 Club in Leicester Square. I don’t remember the men being that dapper — proper gents don’t really care what they wear.

...proper gents don’t really care what they wear. - Baroness Trumpington

[Luca]

Yes, Frederic, but I bet that what passed for non-dapper gentlemanly clothes in her days would have most people today asking you who your tailor is (in London) or "why are you so dressed up?" in most of the rest of the world.

[Frederic Leighton]

Yes, Frederic, but I bet that what passed for non-dapper gentlemanly clothes in her days would have most people today asking you who your tailor is (in London) or "why are you so dressed up?" in most of the rest of the world.

I agree, Luca. Still, I find in her words the heritage of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette - men have a better business to do than hunting silks and linen of the right weight. Their wives would probably take care of that and their tailors would only stock what proper gents should wear.

I still remember the third episode of Greyson Perry's "In the best possible taste" as a fascinating investigation about social classes and style. Smart dress tends to belong to those 'layers' of society where there is higher need to prove or achieve something (middle class).

[Luca]

Agreed. Elegance, especially in the modern sense, is an middle / upper-middle class, rather than aristocratic, aspiration.

Incidentally, I think Grayson Perry, among the horde of contemporary British so-called "modern artists" is the only one who seems to combine some respect for aesthetics with a biting wit. His cycle of tapestries "The Vanity of Small Differences", last eyar, were masterful.

[Costi]

...proper gents don’t really care what they wear. - Baroness Trumpington

Carefree, not careless.

[Rob O]

Incidentally, I think Grayson Perry, among the horde of contemporary British so-called "modern artists" is the only one who seems to combine some respect for aesthetics with a biting wit. His cycle of tapestries "The Vanity of Small Differences", last eyar, were masterful.

I agree Luca, Grayson is one in a million. By the way his Reith lecture talks can be found here, they're well worth a listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d ... e#b00sj965

[alden]

I daresay there have been and are a great many dandies from among the aristocatic crowd that inhabited the Baroness's world. The name of Churchill strikes a bell. If NJS were around he could give us the who's who of great Byronic blue bloods.

These days most aristos probably do not have enough money to dress well as wealth has moved into other strata of society, to the industrialist, the merchant, the trader, the entrepreneur.

[Dr T]

A quote from my father when I purchased my first suit aged 17 - I was complaining about the cost at the time.
"Quality will be remembered long after the cost is forgotten". Im sure its not his quote but one I've always remembered.

[Frederic Leighton]

When people know this is a bow tie that the person wearing it has tied, I think it raises the bar from a fashion statement to a personal achievement.

Gary Cooper, 1933.