An interview with Bernhard Roetzel
A pair of jeans and a white tee and jumper for winter and 1 leather jacket will do as a wardrobe, true.
Even in theatre or when giving a speech in front of a large audience. Zuckerberg the style icon. You are great.
Perhaps some would like to dress more appropriate? Not because they are forced to, but because they'd love to at certain occasions. Perhaps dressing just a little bit more formally or for fun has gone lost with 1968 and the following years? Perhaps some have even become afraid of dressing a little up?
Normcore. Perhaps a certain kind of esthetics has gone lost? That is what a Bruce Boyer suggests in an interview somewhere.
Perhaps that's why blogs like Will Boehlke's or now S. Cromptons have such a success?
Perhaps that is why, in the late 80ies and 90ies already, books like Dressing The Man proved to be a success?
Perhaps that's why some people feel the need to have old cloths & designs remade in a so-called cloth club?
No this has nothing to do with passion for clothes. Not at all.
Just with esthetics. Like seeing beautiful flowers in the middle of a desert.
Mr. Roetzel's book is like Allan Flusser's. They're showing you several ways of dressing in a classic way, sports dress and more formal dress. They're not telling "do this or that". You, the reader can use those guidelines or not. Mr. Roetzel's book is witty, even ironic at some places. I have the impression that some character assassination of him is going on here? Live and let live. He just gives hints to an esthetics of clothing. It has my interest just like paintings, wine, certain sports etc.
You can stick to your jeans and T, also in theatre or in front of an audience. You are great. And we all end up in a coffin.
Even in theatre or when giving a speech in front of a large audience. Zuckerberg the style icon. You are great.
Perhaps some would like to dress more appropriate? Not because they are forced to, but because they'd love to at certain occasions. Perhaps dressing just a little bit more formally or for fun has gone lost with 1968 and the following years? Perhaps some have even become afraid of dressing a little up?
Normcore. Perhaps a certain kind of esthetics has gone lost? That is what a Bruce Boyer suggests in an interview somewhere.
Perhaps that's why blogs like Will Boehlke's or now S. Cromptons have such a success?
Perhaps that is why, in the late 80ies and 90ies already, books like Dressing The Man proved to be a success?
Perhaps that's why some people feel the need to have old cloths & designs remade in a so-called cloth club?
No this has nothing to do with passion for clothes. Not at all.
Just with esthetics. Like seeing beautiful flowers in the middle of a desert.
Mr. Roetzel's book is like Allan Flusser's. They're showing you several ways of dressing in a classic way, sports dress and more formal dress. They're not telling "do this or that". You, the reader can use those guidelines or not. Mr. Roetzel's book is witty, even ironic at some places. I have the impression that some character assassination of him is going on here? Live and let live. He just gives hints to an esthetics of clothing. It has my interest just like paintings, wine, certain sports etc.
You can stick to your jeans and T, also in theatre or in front of an audience. You are great. And we all end up in a coffin.
I am at a loss to understand how jeans and T-shirts made it into this conversation though James Dean, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and BB Bardot looked pretty well in them, because each of them had the magnetic presence that comes from having your own individual style.You can stick to your jeans and T, also in theatre or in front of an audience. You are great. And we all end up in a coffin.
As regards your style icons, Flusser, Will and Crompton, I would prefer young men study rather Cooper, Gable, Agnelli and Prince Michael. But there is no accounting for taste or lack of it.
And Crompton is a great example of how useless clothes are if there is no style in the man to bring them to life. All the Kings’ tailors and all the Kings’ shirtmakers and a warehouse of free clothes have done nothing to make him look like anything more than an oversized, middle aged, balding chipmunk whose mother has told him he cannot go out an play with the squirrels.
And if popularity were the gauge of success then Mcdonalds, the golden arches, would have to be the greatest of gastronomic achievements. We know it is not and neither is the work of your favorite bloggers. All this kind of popularity means is that there are a lot of people who don’t have a clue and are easily mystified. We know that.
As far as character assassination is concerned, what you are reading is a bit of the good old fashioned Anglo American free wheeling debate that is the centerpiece of our democracies. I know there are some cultures where scrutiny and the open exchange of ideas is either not permitted at all or frowned upon. Not here my friend!
I recently had the wonderful good fortune to be invited by a real “Lord” to visit “The” House of Lords. After a comprehensive guided tour of the establishment, that is truly stunning and impressive, we settled for about three hours in the bar of the House of Lords. The place was jam packed with with, well, with Lords, you know, real gentlemen, the real genuine article. And you know, not even a single one of them looked as ridiculous and affected as your imposters, Mr. Roetzel and bloggers. Not a one. That is just the simple unashamed truth.
Cheers
Michael I have to agree with you about Crompton.
He started out writing quite interesting pieces about his experience with different bespoke tailors here and overseas but has morphed into a self appointed style icon. Now people seem to write in asking if they can wear blue socks with black shoes or is wearing a tie a good idea. Normally he pens lengthy replies to such banal questions.
Sadly, he appears to have a growing audience.
He started out writing quite interesting pieces about his experience with different bespoke tailors here and overseas but has morphed into a self appointed style icon. Now people seem to write in asking if they can wear blue socks with black shoes or is wearing a tie a good idea. Normally he pens lengthy replies to such banal questions.
Sadly, he appears to have a growing audience.
Aston
When I was doing the DWS videos I was approached by many Savile Row houses with offers of free clothing in return for sponsorship of their products. It is the way of the world. But it just wasn’t for me. I let them know I was flattered but embarrassed by their offers. I thought integrity was something of paramount importance to someone writing about something like style.
Infomercials are the most denigrating though clearly the most prolific of possible advertising mechanisms. They work well if there are enough people positively desperate for guidance and goods. That is the condition of the market today. And what a change from the epoch when I started the London Lounge to stimulate interest in sartorial arts about to succumb from lack of attention. Its either feast or famine this life of ours.
And I have always found it disconcerting to have someone ask me advice about their own style. I usually responded with questions instead of answers trying to incite them to answer themselves. It is something you have to find by yourself, not something you can cut and paste from someone else.
A young man needs to get up every morning and throw on his clothes, and change them as many times as necessary until he sees a pleasing image. This accumulated work (fun) over time will yield results as experimentation creates new experiences and the strength of the eye (“I”) evolves and grows.
"What a tiresome, time consuming ordeal you present as a option Alden! It is so much easier to ask another nitwit what to wear."
Cheers
When I was doing the DWS videos I was approached by many Savile Row houses with offers of free clothing in return for sponsorship of their products. It is the way of the world. But it just wasn’t for me. I let them know I was flattered but embarrassed by their offers. I thought integrity was something of paramount importance to someone writing about something like style.
Infomercials are the most denigrating though clearly the most prolific of possible advertising mechanisms. They work well if there are enough people positively desperate for guidance and goods. That is the condition of the market today. And what a change from the epoch when I started the London Lounge to stimulate interest in sartorial arts about to succumb from lack of attention. Its either feast or famine this life of ours.
And I have always found it disconcerting to have someone ask me advice about their own style. I usually responded with questions instead of answers trying to incite them to answer themselves. It is something you have to find by yourself, not something you can cut and paste from someone else.
A young man needs to get up every morning and throw on his clothes, and change them as many times as necessary until he sees a pleasing image. This accumulated work (fun) over time will yield results as experimentation creates new experiences and the strength of the eye (“I”) evolves and grows.
"What a tiresome, time consuming ordeal you present as a option Alden! It is so much easier to ask another nitwit what to wear."
Cheers
I share your viewpoint 100% Michael.
I suppose Cromps has found a seam of folk who haven't a clue, and perhaps is proof of the old adage, "in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king".
I suppose Cromps has found a seam of folk who haven't a clue, and perhaps is proof of the old adage, "in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king".
"A fool and his money are soon parted"
Cheers
Cheers
I understand Alden's aggravation.
He is clearly POed at the general lack of style, the dictates and formulas, the affectation and the commercialism, of what we see foisted on people through the nets over the past years.
I agree. I think that we all agree. Alden put it bluntly. It probably needed to be said.
Regardless of the personalities involved out there on the nets, style and charisma are so ephemeral, and undefinable, as to be frustrating to anyone trying to consciously capture it.
True, the Gables, Coopers, Agnelli, et. al. - the old timers- had bags of charisma which they were uncommonly able to project to us over the years through photos- but that is rare.
I go back to thinking that really style is unthinking. A lack of self consciousness of oneself and one's dress. Of deep conservatism and conversation and engagement with oneself rather than others.
It is probably best to take a sabbatical from the nets and keep one's own company in silence and solitude.
He is clearly POed at the general lack of style, the dictates and formulas, the affectation and the commercialism, of what we see foisted on people through the nets over the past years.
I agree. I think that we all agree. Alden put it bluntly. It probably needed to be said.
Regardless of the personalities involved out there on the nets, style and charisma are so ephemeral, and undefinable, as to be frustrating to anyone trying to consciously capture it.
True, the Gables, Coopers, Agnelli, et. al. - the old timers- had bags of charisma which they were uncommonly able to project to us over the years through photos- but that is rare.
I go back to thinking that really style is unthinking. A lack of self consciousness of oneself and one's dress. Of deep conservatism and conversation and engagement with oneself rather than others.
It is probably best to take a sabbatical from the nets and keep one's own company in silence and solitude.
Uppercase
You cannot do style, you have to let style do you. You cannot will it to happen, you have to allow it to thrive. You don’t have to go anywhere, and you do not have to ask anyone else for permission to get it because you already have it. It cannot be willed into being by the rational, thinking portion of our brains. A good measure of it has to come spontaneously from deep within, from our own identities, from the unique trove of experience locked away in the subconscious.
Balzac made it clear a long time ago when he wrote that “the rich man and fop decorate themselves and the elegant man simply dresses.” You see, no thought, no details, no analysis, no asking thousands of questions to style illiterate bloggers, no fop formulas, no trying to be this or that.
Just dress yourself until you see yourself. Develop the eye (I).
“The elegant man simply dresses!”
That is the truth. The problem is that the truth is not a growth market. It creates few, if any, commercial opportunities. In fact, the truth repels us, especially when it shows us in all our resplendent foolishness.
So in order to relieve the “rich man and fop” of the contents of their purses, style entrepreneurs get creative with the truth and create the universe of rules, formulas, details, aspirations, disguises that sell books, and blogs. The snake oil salesman of today have a very ore rich vein to dig in human vanity.
Cheers
You cannot do style, you have to let style do you. You cannot will it to happen, you have to allow it to thrive. You don’t have to go anywhere, and you do not have to ask anyone else for permission to get it because you already have it. It cannot be willed into being by the rational, thinking portion of our brains. A good measure of it has to come spontaneously from deep within, from our own identities, from the unique trove of experience locked away in the subconscious.
Balzac made it clear a long time ago when he wrote that “the rich man and fop decorate themselves and the elegant man simply dresses.” You see, no thought, no details, no analysis, no asking thousands of questions to style illiterate bloggers, no fop formulas, no trying to be this or that.
Just dress yourself until you see yourself. Develop the eye (I).
“The elegant man simply dresses!”
That is the truth. The problem is that the truth is not a growth market. It creates few, if any, commercial opportunities. In fact, the truth repels us, especially when it shows us in all our resplendent foolishness.
So in order to relieve the “rich man and fop” of the contents of their purses, style entrepreneurs get creative with the truth and create the universe of rules, formulas, details, aspirations, disguises that sell books, and blogs. The snake oil salesman of today have a very ore rich vein to dig in human vanity.
Cheers
Interesting discussion. I do not hold either Mr Roetzl nor Mr Crompton in such abject contempt, I'm afraid.
I believe they address a rather different audience than LL or Mr Alden.
LL represents, to use a currently popular concept, the sartorial 1%.
Of the remaining 99% (to which I no doubt belong) very few will ever be able and willing to undertake the style-gestalt so nicely explained above.
In that sense, if the mass of appallingly ill-clad people I see in London (London!) every day slavishly followed the sort of basic advice peddled by aforementioned gentlemen, I think they would undoubtedly look better.
Would they be expressing some innate, unique, individual STYLE? I guess not.
Better an affected, copycat stooge of Roetzel any day than the tragic ugliness one observes every day.
And who knows, more prescriptive, 'entry-level' blogs may prove a gateway drug to the higher plane.
I believe they address a rather different audience than LL or Mr Alden.
LL represents, to use a currently popular concept, the sartorial 1%.
Of the remaining 99% (to which I no doubt belong) very few will ever be able and willing to undertake the style-gestalt so nicely explained above.
In that sense, if the mass of appallingly ill-clad people I see in London (London!) every day slavishly followed the sort of basic advice peddled by aforementioned gentlemen, I think they would undoubtedly look better.
Would they be expressing some innate, unique, individual STYLE? I guess not.
Better an affected, copycat stooge of Roetzel any day than the tragic ugliness one observes every day.
And who knows, more prescriptive, 'entry-level' blogs may prove a gateway drug to the higher plane.
The gripe with Cromps, in my view, stems from the fact that he is a self-appointed style guru, and despite his apparent lack of qualification he seems to have amassed an audience of readers who do ask some daft questions which normally elicit a daft reply.
But he does have a very clever business model; get plenty of hits, sell advertising space, use the income to get plenty of nice pieces commissioned..............and therefore increase the number of hits.
Wish I had thought of that.
But he does have a very clever business model; get plenty of hits, sell advertising space, use the income to get plenty of nice pieces commissioned..............and therefore increase the number of hits.
Wish I had thought of that.
This might be true from a purely aesthetical point of view. However, if authenticity is a value to consider, the opposite could be it.Luca wrote: Better an affected, copycat stooge of Roetzel any day than the tragic ugliness one observes every day.
But the good news is, as Luca suspects, that it doesn´t have to be only one way or the other. Having taken Mr. Roetzel´s (or whoever´s) propositions as a guide for "throwing clothes on you in front of the mirror and let your style thrive", the result does not convert you -hopefully- into a copycat stooge or an affected dresser. Just be aware that most of these guys might be out there after your purse and enjoy the ride. Realizing your potential style might be around the corner
Luca,LL represents, to use a currently popular concept, the sartorial 1%.
Of the remaining 99% (to which I no doubt belong) very few will ever be able and willing to undertake the style-gestalt so nicely explained above.
In that sense, if the mass of appallingly ill-clad people I see in London (London!) every day slavishly followed the sort of basic advice peddled by aforementioned gentlemen, I think they would undoubtedly look better.
Bernard Shaw said that out of a thousand men there were 700 philistines, 299 idealists and one realist. Balzac said that “the brute covers himself, the rich man and fop decorate themselves and the elegant man dresses.” So we might deduce that out of a 1000 men there are 700 brutes, 299 fops and one elegant man. There you have your 1%.
I am absolutely not convinced that the 299 pretentious fops who follow like sheep look any better than the honest brute who simply does not know any better. The arriviste fop be he a Roetzelian or a Cromptonian is still a stinking arriviste fop. He absolutely does not look better than the brute walking in his jeans, boots and work belt to his construction site. And the cat calls from women in the brute’s favor prove the point!
Cheers
I agree. To me, style is not limited to clothes. Style is just your mindset, the way you think, who you are, and if you dress as you wish to it tends to portray a more coherent and generally stylish picture because it is authentically you.alden wrote: You cannot do style, you have to let style do you. You cannot will it to happen, you have to allow it to thrive. You don’t have to go anywhere, and you do not have to ask anyone else for permission to get it because you already have it. It cannot be willed into being by the rational, thinking portion of our brains. A good measure of it has to come spontaneously from deep within, from our own identities, from the unique trove of experience locked away in the subconscious.
The people who I have found most stylish were never necessarily the best dressed. They were people who lived how they wanted to live and stayed true to who they wanted to be.
-
- Information
-
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 65 guests