RAWI ABDELAL
“Elegance is not what label you have on your clothes; it’s what personality you share with others. And that’s why elegance can come in so many different forms, because its personal. There’s no single overriding theme of elegance.
“What does chic, or what does elegance mean to me? I happened to go back to school this year, to Harvard Business School, after celebrating 25 years at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile (now a department of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, ed.), and Rawi Abdelal was one of my teachers. What I found so fascinating about Rawi was obviously the fact that he’s extremely well dressed. All his suits are made to measure, and they’re always the same colour. But most important was his movement.The clothes he was wearing were there to empower what he had to say, not to distract – and that’s what’s really important about f ashion. Fashion has a tendency to override the wearer, and the ‘elegant’ f actor for me is when both come together – when there’s a conscious choice in what you’re wearing, but it suits not only your body but also your personality.
“If we speak about the lack of ele- gance today, it’s often more about the object that someone is wearing, by a certain brand, or maybe because of social media. But actually it’s not about the object; it’s about the person. That’s what makes the difference when we speak about elegance today.
“From the start, my classmates and I had a conversation about Rawi’s suits. It’s a very deliberate choice. He wears dark blue suits with a white shirt, and the differences only lie in his shoes or his scarf, which always perfectly match. First and foremost, he’s a brilliant scholar in his field, which is macroeconomics and Russian studies. That’s the starting point.When you see him, the rigour he has in his classes and academic research is immediately apparent in the choice of his suits. It’s almost a uniform that describes him and his personality very well.
“When you bring together personality, style choices and movement, and they all coincide, I think it’s really powerful. It’s why sportswear can be elegant, too.”