Alan Flusser Interview

[pchong]

You guys seen this?

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/2213

I have never met him, or seen his pic, so please take this question as it is totally earnest...is Alan weight challenged? He looks very large in the video...the coat looks too large...seems to be overhanging his shoulders (1 min 59s), it bunches up behind his neck. His coat sleeves seem to ride up very high (6min 10s)...above even his shirt cuffs.

Comments?

[Guest]

well he is fat, but after a while i didn't care it was a very good interview. he always dresses like that dark tie, pin stripe suit. and when he uses colors it gets worst. you should see his picture on the book dressing the man, pink shirt, green tie, Grey pin stripe coat, and brown handkerchief. it really ironic.

[sartorius]

I know very little about him but, from what I have gathered, I can't see how he is any different to other mens designers with a line in custom clothing (Richard James, Oswold Boteng, Tom Ford). Based on this film, he needs his suit coat recut. What a disaster.

[Mark Seitelman]

I think that Alan's coat was bunched-up and that he merely failed to adjust it and to sit-up straight.

[Costi]

It is rather difficult to assess a DB coat's fit when the wearer sits with the coat buttoned, leans forward elbows on the table, crosses his arms or makes ample gestures. He certainly didn't pose to the advantage of his coat, which seems quite soft in construction and inclined to follow the wearer's movements.

[Costi]

well he is fat, but after a while i didn't care it was a very good interview. he always dresses like that dark tie, pin stripe suit. and when he uses colors it gets worst. you should see his picture on the book dressing the man, pink shirt, green tie, Grey pin stripe coat, and brown handkerchief. it really ironic.

I take it you have refined your ideas on the monument in honour of Mr. Flusser that you proposed to raise three months ago: it will be a large and colourful one...

[storeynicholas]

There are stories of officers in trousers with footstraps refusing to sit down on long journeys out of fear that they might stretch the knees out - and very smart they no doubt looked - but comfortable? I doubt it. Clothes are made to be worn - suits - even shoes - crease with movement and it is unlikely that Flusser would go on the TV in a suit that doesn't fit - but it is, after all, an interview and not a fashion parade - as for his size - few of us can help our build. So (in American English): give the guy a break.
NJS

[pchong]

I defer in opinion...my original question was sincere in whether he is weight challenged...I didn't know...now that we have established that, it matters not but to answer my curiosity. Larger men can, and do look elegant. In this video, he does not strike me as particularly so.

Also, as he is a man who proposes elegance, and a well known chap at that, I would expect him to at least take some care before appearing on a TV (I think it was TV...not sure about US TV), to carry the flag and at least make sure his suit looks neat and conveys the ideas he espoused, and so many of us learnt through his books.

Disappointing, to say the least.

There are stories of officers in trousers with footstraps refusing to sit down on long journeys out of fear that they might stretch the knees out - and very smart they no doubt looked - but comfortable? I doubt it. Clothes are made to be worn - suits - even shoes - crease with movement and it is unlikely that Flusser would go on the TV in a suit that doesn't fit - but it is, after all, an interview and not a fashion parade - as for his size - few of us can help our build. So (in American English): give the guy a break.
NJS

[sartorius]

So (in American English): give the guy a break

Why? He makes his money from designing and making clothes. He also writes on the subject. I think we are entitled to ask why someone who holds himself out as an authority on these matters appears to fall short when dressing himself. And if he does fall short, we are also entitled to conclude that his advice may not be as credible as we previously assumed.

I am very happy to be corrected, but to my eye his entire outfit contradicts the overriding principle he outlines to the interviewer about dressing well: namely, that clothes should flatter. His suit bunches and hangs, and the pattern is a wide pin or chalk stripe, all of which seem to make him look bulkier than he is. This is exaggerated still more by his cutaway collar and wide tie.

[Guest]

It maybe that he got rich and fat and he does not care anymore. i have a picture from his book in 1982. he is wearing a pin collar and a gray suit. he looked good then.
I'll give him a break since I'm going to his store next month to get a sport belt, partly made of crocodile leather.

http://www.alanflussercustom.com/belts.html

[alden]

It is rather difficult to assess a DB coat's fit when the wearer sits with the coat buttoned, leans forward elbows on the table, crosses his arms or makes ample gestures. He certainly didn't pose to the advantage of his coat

He knew he would be on stage, sitting behind a table, so why would he have not worn an SB suit to his advantage in those circumstances? Flusser offers himself as a dress consultant to the moguls of Manhatten who are rightfully concerned about their public presentation. His very poor dressing performance is not a good advertisement for these services.

The question of his weight is irrelevant because a large man can dress well and I will not go over the amateurish dressing faux pas he has committed as others have already done the correct analysis. Frankly Charlie Rose is dressed much better than Flusser. His shirt's collar is infinitely better than the haberdasher's.

What disappointed me the most was Flusser's flabby responses and nearly incoherent stumbling phrasing and diction. He kept mumbling about "the information" as if elegance were contained in some secret code one could download on CNET. The most hilarious statement was that having mastered a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie, a man will have mastered 70% of the art of dressing (like a junior IBM salesman.)

Like Charlie Rose, I have always liked Flusser's book for the great pictures they contain.
The complex dressing systems for coloration, matching patterns, collar shapes seem to be things he dreamed up to frame a consulting business as they contain little useful "information."

Cheers

M Alden

[ottovbvs]

It is rather difficult to assess a DB coat's fit when the wearer sits with the coat buttoned, leans forward elbows on the table, crosses his arms or makes ample gestures. He certainly didn't pose to the advantage of his coat

He knew he would be on stage, sitting behind a table, so why would he have not worn an SB suit to his advantage in those circumstances? Flusser offers himself as a dress consultant to the moguls of Manhatten who are rightfully concerned about their public presentation. His very poor dressing performance is not a good advertisement for these services.

The question of his weight is irrelevant because a large man can dress well and I will not go over the amateurish dressing faux pas he has committed as others have already done the correct analysis. Frankly Charlie Rose is dressed much better than Flusser. His shirt's collar is infinitely better than the haberdasher's.

What disappointed me the most was Flusser's flabby responses and nearly incoherent stumbling phrasing and diction. He kept mumbling about "the information" as if elegance were contained in some secret code one could download on CNET. The most hilarious statement was that having mastered a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie, a man will have mastered 70% of the art of dressing (like a junior IBM salesman.)

Like Charlie Rose, I have always liked Flusser's book for the great pictures they contain.
The complex dressing systems for coloration, matching patterns, collar shapes seem to be things he dreamed up to frame a consulting business as they contain little useful "information."

Cheers

M Alden

I've seen Alan Flusser a few times. He is very overweight but doesn't wear dark pinstripes all the time, I saw him about a year ago at some fashion event and he was wearing a sportcoat, cords I think, paddock style top coat, elaborately tied scarf. In truth he looked a bit dishevelled but the overall appearance because of the combo of colors and garments was very stylish. I think his books are very good and have done a lot to promote fashion. The lessons they teach are invariably correct even if perhaps he didn't express them too well in this interview. I'm afraid I also have to demur from the comment about there being little useful info in his "dressing systems." Not everyone gets this knowledge quickly, I certainly didn't, and even I still get it wrong sometimes. I'm also constantly amazed as I overhear assistants in high end and medium end stores "assist" clients in choosing ties and shirts and suit combos. Do these people have no idea? So anything that improves standard is desirable even if he is something of prophet without honor in his own land.

[ottovbvs]

I just took ten minutes to watch the interview again after reading the comments posted which are on the whole somewhat on the negative side. Yes he didn't look like Cary Grant but he actually made some good points which I've indirectly made in other posts on other subjects. Notably, that coloration and physique are very important when choosing clothes. Just because you like something in the abstract as a style, a Polo coat say, doesnt mean it's going to suit you as an individual. And his second point, it's a big mistake to dry and dress like someone else. Hence the proliferation of all those three buttons in lightweight fabrics, or too tight suits a la Brad Pitt, or black four in hands with dinner jackets a la de Caprio. His point about style arbiters isn't far off the mark either. It's always very illuminating when you go into ordinary American homes and see photos of their parents or grandparents pictured in the thirties and forties and they invarialby look incredibly stylish when they are out and about. Sorry to be the contrarian and I promise I'm not Flusser's paid PR flak but really think he's not getting a fair hearing.

[storeynicholas]

Just a couple of points occur to me - first, a story about Fred Astaire at some event at his daughter's school (I forget where I came across the tale) - there was a dance and he was expected to 'perform' - anyway, he ended up going around the wrong way and made something of a hash of it - maybe, because he didn't want to attract attention and applause; maybe because he didn't want to be a 'performing monkey'; indeed, maybe any number of reasons. So far as the Flusser inteview is concerned, maybe, he felt that he was on the show to talk about the subject not to do a twirl or to discuss himself. Secondly, I am not sure that Flusser is unacknowledged in his own country: he has books on the subject which are persisiting best-sellers at home and abroad; he has received awards for his contribution to the enhancement of men's fashion and he advised on wardrobe for the accliamed films Wall Street and Scent of a Woman. I have seen only Scent of a Woman and I do not remember the clothes - which means that, so far as I am concerned, he must have got it spot on. Accordingly, I agree that he is getting, in part, a tough ride here.
NJS

[Montauk]

It seems to me that Flusser, by spending so much time in this interview discussing such relatively esoteric sartorial points as collar shape, missed a rare opportunity to address the state of men's dress more fundamentally before a large and general audience. The primary issue, after all, is not that men don't wear higher-quality or better-chosen tailored clothing, but that they don't wear tailored clothing at all if they can help it. Whatever his (and our) finely-tuned and highly-held notions of dressing well, the fact is that it's all well over the heads of the Average Joe, who would perhaps like to look better but who probably requires a more philosophically robust rationale for "dressing up" than that doing so will slim his face or fatten his paycheck.

I believe that that rationale can still be found where it's always been--in a sense of pleasure rather than knowledge (or "information" as Flusser rather apologetically terms it). Having absorbed the fundamentals of sartorial grammar while still schoolboys, men in the 1930s looked great because they unabashedly had FUN with the tailored clothes which they wore elegantly and appropriately in social contexts far beyond business or work. Fashion was something they followed with a conneuseur's eye rather than a consumer's anxiety. I suspect that the aspirational "dress for success" school of sartorial instruction has, ironically, done more to dampen popular enthusiasm for tailored clothing than to expand or refine it, robbing it of the "cool" it possessed before the term was coined. As all the great dressers have known, traditional men's clothing is worn best--and most effectively--with a healthy dollop of unpretentious bonhommie rather than starchy prescription or corporate ambition. Power, if one is bothered with such a thing, is after all conferred by ease.

A gentleman in the true sense, of course, is NOT concerned with power, or prestige; he genuinely loves his clothes for their own sake, wearing them with care and confidence and without ostentation or shame. That kind of unapologetic authenticity is the real stuff of masculinity; it's never lost its power to impress, but even more importantly, it's every bit as much fun as it ever was. Remind men of that much and they'll teach themselves the details.