An interview with Bernhard Roetzel

"He had that supreme elegance of being, quite simply, what he was."

-C. Albaret describing Marcel Proust

Style, chic, presence, sex appeal: whatever you call it, you can discuss it here.
alden
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Mon Mar 29, 2010 12:33 pm

Evidently, you cannot equate a person's style with clothes.
You know I think the point I should make is that there is a difference between being well dressed and having style (elegance.) A man can be perfectly well dressed and not have an ounce of style. Also a man can have immense style and be buck naked.There are very few men who possess the gift of natural style, it is worth studying because it is so rare...and maybe we can learn from it...

I do not want our young, newly arrived visitors to be discouraged. We surely must always strive to be well dressed. And we can learn to dress well. If we are able in addition to liberate some of the style that is within us, then, all the better.

Cheers

Michael
uppercase
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Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:01 am

alden wrote:[ And some men will wear an identical suit better than another. Its a fact.

Cheers

Michael
I think that once you switched the focus on LL from the technicalities of tailoring to that of 'style', we are entering an area which is ephermeral, one of je nais se quois and finally, much harder to discuss.

I agree that it is a fact. One sees it time and time again. But it is a can of worms.

Look at these guys. What is it about them??

Image

Image

Image
Costi
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Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:55 am

uppercase wrote:But it is a can of worms.
A can of worms? A fountain of inspiration, rather!

But I agree it may become a can of worms if we try to understand by analyzing. There is nothing to analyze (i.e. break down into components) because it is the WHOLE that makes the impression. The parts click together by themselves, in a sense, if we choose them with an intuitive vision of the whole in our minds.
Change the shoes, the shirt, the trousers and the tie - and these men will look just as good. But try to put someone else in their clothes and see if it is the same... The way to learn from these stylish men is to let ourselves be inspired by them. Not with our minds, but with our senses and intuition. Listen to the music, not to the sounds. I have to quote maestro Celi again because his vision about music is so close to what many of us think about style, too: go to 4:35 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMN4-BkX ... re=related and listen to what a mathematician (!) says about music.
alden
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Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:16 am

I think that once you switched the focus on LL from the technicalities of tailoring to that of 'style', we are entering an area which is ephermeral, one of je nais se quois and finally, much harder to discuss.
UC, what I can tell you is that these men probably knew next to nothing about the technicalities of tailoring. The real can of worms is opened when non tailors start trying to think like tailors and worry about the technical minutia of a craft that takes many decades to learn. I have the hunch that men would be better off thinking about things that can lead them to better dress or to style (by any definition.) It may be a more difficult discussion, but it is one that has dividends.

In any case the study of style is a small fraction of what goes on here in the LL. And there are tailoring resources here in the way of Frank Shattuck and others to answer technical questions.

I will be answering the second part of your question soon.

Michael
alden
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Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:02 am

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.
Style has less to do with dressing styles or garments or heritage or traditions, it has to do with the cocktail one man shakes with a dash of all those ingredients and a very large dose of himself.

Costi's recently posted pictures of the coat made of the TW12 is an example.

Michael Alden
alden
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Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:41 am

Look at these guys. What is it about them??
Mr. Roetzel’s comments, in the above interview, about German self consciousness and his wanderings in search of a style seem like a bit of sartorial sehnsucht. Reading this story made me think about one of the most stylish men I ever met, an Austrian; and the stark contrast between these two men and their stories may give us some clues about style, and answer part of your question.

Helmut Berger was perhaps the only man who could come close to Cary Grant for sheer physical beauty and grace. He shared a house in the seventies with a girlfriend of mine in Bel Air where he was seeking work in Hollywood, like yours truly. Berger displayed the most individual, spontaneous and original gift for elegance I have ever seen. I never saw him copy a style or tradition, try to be English or Italian, in fact, he seemed not to care about clothes (and rarely even bothered to wear any.)
3151060084_b10e177e0e.jpg
Mark the words down: individual, spontaneous and original. Maybe it was self confidence that kindled the individuality. Or maybe it was a faculty on another plane than mere confidence, a negligence about self, a kind of radiant detachment that instructs not to think, but to do, to be. It’s not rational, there is not an ounce of sehnsucht, a mind set, a studied pose, an attempted style, a new cut, an older tailor, some new cloth, or the latest fashion.

It is shining.
james_cagney_and_joan_blondell_1932.jpg
When you look at the pictures of Cary Grant, Marcelo, Agnelli and Berger, you see four of the most handsome men in recent history. But physical beauty has nothing to do with style or how would you explain Fred Astaire, Toto, Noiret, Jean Gabin, James Cagney? Not with the choice of their clothes!

To be continued............
internationalist
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Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:57 pm

Interesting, back and forth.

To translate it all - to myself - to plain English: it all boils down to what do we know about the human mind and the brain so far (as in 2015). Incredible new discoveries and insights just in the last 10 years alone. The question is, who is up to date with all that? Everything is up on YouTube in TED Talks and Google talks; and in more detail, the related books on Amazon.

Okay, you don't necessarily have to follow Western science so closely; if you remember, the Buddha said, test everything I say with the scientific method and see if it still stands.

So, the Western philosophy which this discussion is heavy of, might be true, but let's face it dense - isn't it? -; East and West goes the same same - at some level -, so it would be interesting to hear your comments translated to the Eastern perspective. Anybody?

Do you agree? With me or with each other?
internationalist
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Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:14 am

By the way, thank you for recommending this book - finally. This is definitely more helpful than the old drawings I was referred to previously, and the notion that 'just have inner style' - which implies that I am supposed to invent 100s of years of classic menswear from scratch - I mean, this is all you can do if you do not live near any of the fashion capitals of the world, right? ;)
Last edited by internationalist on Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
internationalist
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Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:22 am

I really enjoyed this academic review of the book: http://blog.colinmarshall.org/?p=368
internationalist
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Sun Aug 07, 2016 12:24 am

Apparently, there's a 2016 update to Bernhard Roetzel's classic (classic?) book, Gentleman: https://www.amazon.com/Gentleman-Ultima ... 3848008165

But how is it different? Has any of you pulled the trigger on it?
uppercase
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Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:46 pm

Thanks for dusting off this old thread.
Lots of forgotten gems here, particularly Alden's musings.
Too bad Alden never put his thoughts down in a book. !
Costi
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Wed Aug 10, 2016 2:34 pm

uppercase wrote:Thanks for dusting off this old thread.
Lots of forgotten gems here, particularly Alden's musings.
Too bad Alden never put his thoughts down in a book. !
...yet!
uppercase
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Thu Aug 11, 2016 12:08 am

^^^

I hope you're right!!

I would hope for lots of photos and he could be his own model in his own clothes!!

Though he better get moving on this.…!! We're not getting any younger.
Costi
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Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:49 am

UC, so you wish for a personal picture album, not a book...
uppercase
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Fri Aug 12, 2016 7:30 pm

Yes, that would be wonderful!

I could see a richly, professionally photographed (in color) tour of Alden's sartorial life and choices shot in Paris and Sicily over the 4 seasons. With a bit of commentary for each photo.

The possibilities are endless. What a fun project that would be!

That's what we need. But nobody listens to me …
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