Older but no less stylish
Age cannot wither your style, says Peter York, if you follow his rules
My grandmother, inexplicably brought up in France – though as British an old bundle as they come – once said she didn’t want me to grow up like a Frenchman. ‘Why not, granny?’ ‘French men [very, very long pause] wear scent.’
I decided that I would wear it because it sounded Frenchy, fun and was grannybanned. I have a shelf full of the stuff now, even though it’s one of the things women in research say they hate absolutely about a man ‘preceded by an overbearing cloud of cologne’.
Ever since, I’ve been guilty of what Bertrand Russell said of Anthony Eden: ‘He’s not a gentleman; he dresses too well.’
Some say I look ‘dapper’. In Sloanespeak, that means a putdown combination of trying-too-hard-airheadwhat-are-you-compensating-for-plusplus-worse. It echoes the ancient idea that being foreign in any way is non-u – because all kinds of French or Italian men completely, culturally get the idea of good clothes as an expression of educated, bourgeois knowing about the world. Put a bunch of well-educated, well-paid, senior, English, corporate types alongside their Paris or Milan counterparts and you’re squirming for your nation.
It chimes, too, with the old English double-bluff of affecting not to notice clothes and never making an effort. Old Brits do make an effort – when there’s a uniform involved, from black tie on.
The older you get – and if you’ve hit seventy like me – the more loaded the whole ‘dapper’ thing gets. When should you stop enjoying your nice clothes and go out looking like a bundle intended for landfill?
Here are my rules on how to look tolerable over sixty:
Don’t wear excitable, sports-derived clothing. That includes lurid trainers, hoodies, sweat pants, Lycra cycling kit or anything that young people wear when doing sporty stuff. It’s unseemly, whether you’ve got a Dad bod or not. Don’t wear tight clothes or anything intended to show off your assets. Don’t wear ultra-skinny trousers or bumfreezer jackets. Don’t wear music-derived outfits in imitation of your musical heroes – midperiod Bruce Springsteeny jeans and leather bomber jackets, or Iron Maiden 1982 tour T-shirts. Don’t wear pointy shoes, square-toed ones or those elfish, turned-up toes. Don’t wear a beard (though hipsters have made all that complicated now), don’t do a Trumpoid comb-over and don’t have a grizzly ponytail. Don’t dye your hair bright black, brown or oldrocker blonde. And don’t be mahogany, permatanned (people now just think skin cancer). I never did any of these things. I used to cover punk gigs wearing Brooks Brothers pure prep – button-down Oxford shirt, linen jacket etc. Punks – often very design-sophisticated – completely got the fact that I was playing about with the symbolism.
Clothes are a conversation, where their wearers are saying things not just about themselves, but about the state of the world; and how they feel about different dress codes.
Conventional, upper-middle opinion loves to call this ‘poncy’, meaning things they don’t get but instinctively fear aren’t class-correct. ‘Poncy’ means pretentious and pointlessly overdone; too considered. They’re right sometimes – expensive ‘fine dining’ is full of ponciness – but sometimes it’s just dissing anything ambitious and original. Wear moisturiser I use something cheap from Boots called E45 in large pumpaction containers. It never occurred to me this could be an un-english activity. Keep as many of your original teeth as possible for as long as possible. Barring accidents, it’s not that difficult. If they migrate or fall out, your face changes shape in worrying ways. Lose the belly Unless you’re ill (‘It’s my glands, doctor!’), there’s no excuse. It’s a public offence to have a giant belly, and dangerous, too. It’s seriously easy to gain weight and not that hard to lose it, either. I don’t go to a gym and I wouldn’t, unless a doctor made me. The more you drink – and I love it when I’m out – the more careless you are about the joy of artisanal bread rolls, pasta and novelty macaroons. If I gave up drink, I’d get tremendously thin, never look pink or loopy and think better. But drink adds interest to events and people, which could otherwise be a bit boring. Wear timeless clothes I’m currently wearing my 25-year-old Cordings corduroy suit. It’s made of a cord so thick and delicious it’d stop a bullet. It’s ‘teamed with’ – as fashion people say – a hyper-cheap, pink, linen shirt from Uniqlo – so cheap I bought four; plus Crockett & Jones plain vamp shoes in shiny deep brown.
Yesterday, I was wearing a nice, plain – no brassy buttons – navy blazer in Loro Piana fabric from Volpe, Pimlico’s finest menswear shop. Over a Ralph Lauren, forest-green, cable-knit, cashmere crewneck bought from Madison Avenue just pre-crash, when I was feeling delusionally flush. Over an old Pink’s, made in Ireland, redstriped shirt.
And natty, check trousers – very modestly priced – from H&M, the Ikea of global outfitting. Tasty. Don’t have plastic surgery It sounds completely brilliant, until you see the results on famous people who’ve had all the good advice big money should get you. Think Mickey Rourke… or Barry Manilow.
Peter York is co-author of ‘The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook’ (Ebury Press)