Colour me happy
In an age before neutral shades overwhelmed us, gentlemen won praise for their rainbow swagger. Matthew Dennison proffers advice on introducing colour to the modern wardrobe
In an age of overwhelmingly neutral shades, Matthew Dennison proffers advice on introducing colour to the modern wardrobe
Beau Brummell ushered in the “dark ages” in which the majority of men’s wardrobes continue to languish
LINGERINGLY, Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal described details of the sumptuous appearance of ‘Nobility and Persons of Distinction’ at St James’s Palace for the birthday celebrations of Queen Caroline, consort of the new King, George II, in March 1727.
The King wore ‘blue velvet, with diamond buttons’, his hat ‘buttoned up with prodigious fine diamonds’, and the couple’s eldest son, Frederick, chose ‘mouse-coloured velvet turned up with scarlet and very richly embroidered with silver’.
In an age before sombre homogeneity overwhelmed men’s dress, these peacock princes, the cynosure of every eye, won praise for their rainbow swagger. How times change. Perhaps the rot set in with Beau Brummell, himself a conspicuously well-dressed arbiter of male style 200 years ago. Brummell’s chic consisted of paring back men’s clothing to a well-cut ensemble of blue coat, a buff waistcoat, an off-white shirt with white cravat and buckskin trousers worn with dark boots.
Smart Brummell undoubtedly was, but his shrinking of the masculine palette to a handful of neutrals ushered in the ‘dark ages’, in which the majority of British men’s wardrobes continue to languish. If Brummell’s influence turbocharged the emergence of distinctively British tailoring, it also implicitly castigated previous Continental influences (especially fashions from France) as frivolous and outré, associated with a discredited and pleasure-seeking ancien régime.
And so emerged, in terms of male dress, a binary equating of dingy colours with sobriety, serious-mindedness and respectability and a relegation of brighter shades to the dressing-up box, the nursery and female fashions. Or, worse still, creative types and children’s entertainers.
Viewed through this prism, the scarlet, brown and silver finery of Frederick, Prince of Wales, intended as a birthday compliment to his mother as well as a means of promoting British weaving and lacemaking, is the garb of a popinjay, a costume only suitable for a comic-opera buffoon.
As the 21st century gathers momentum, so the impulse towards ever greater informality, begun more than half a century ago, continues to impact on everything from table manners and conversational style to dress. Not so long ago, ‘smart casual’ confounded the average Briton; now, many workplaces have adopted American-style ‘business casual’. In essence, both offer men a simpler manner of dress, with greater freedom of choice.
However, both the British high street and the average drinks party invariably reveal something akin to a male uniform in—yes, you guessed it—a limited ragbag of drab neutrals: black, grey, white, navy, beige and khaki. Whither the crimson trousers of 1980s Fulham, as championed by Country Life (‘Who’s wearing the red trousers?’, March 2, 2016)? And as for yellow…
Costume designer Jany Temime, responsible for James Bond’s style in the recent Skyfall and Spectre films, argues that dressing in neutral colours allows a man’s appearance to express his personality, with colourful clothing an unnecessary distraction. In the case of Daniel Craig, this may well be true, but few men have Mr Craig’s natural advantages—or a camera specifically trained on all their best angles.
It was the late Sir Hardy Amies who wrote ‘there is not much fun in always buying plain socks’. Sir Hardy’s lament was only partly tongue-in-cheek. He understood that gentlemanly attire, historically inclined to vibrancy, had become a staid affair, far removed from the vermilion-and-gold doublet and hose worn beneath goldhighlighted armour by courtier-poet Sir Philip Sidney for Elizabeth I’s Accession Day Tilt in 1585 or the turquoise stockings and rose-pink cloak with which an anonymous portraitist dressed one of Lord Lumley’s medieval ancestors in a series of imaginary portraits commissioned to decorate the great chamber of Lumley Castle in the same decade.
With an eye to his conservative clientele, Sir Hardy suggested ‘it is possible to wear socks of entirely different colour from the rest of the costume’, although even this encouragement to rebellion came with a caveat: ‘The matching of the socks to the tie I do find affected.’ For those whose taste for colourful dressing is tentative, coloured socks remain an option. As Sir Hardy pleaded, these ought not to be matched with the tie, or even a pocket square.
Both ties and pocket squares are, of course, simple, manageable means of even the most conformist dresser introducing
Gaudily bright coat linings, like vivid braces, perpetuate a whiff of 1980s Yuppiedom
notes of colour into his wardrobe. For many British men, such accents of colour—which can also come from a coloured belt, tie, scarf or spectacle frames—are enough. Two centuries of dark dressing have hardened attitudes.
If dark colours are the norm, then brighter colours must represent rebellion, even transgression. Colourful clothing choices for men are often described as ‘brave’. With bravery comes the possibility of conspicuousness, anathema to the bulk of the population.
Tailors occasionally offer their customers the option of coloured linings for jackets and coats. This is another way of introducing ‘barely there’ colour flashes: with the coat fastened, the lining is invisible.
A word of caution: gaudily bright coat linings, like vivid braces, potentially perpetuate a whiff of 1980s Yuppiedom that may not be to everyone’s taste.
So what are the options for that hardy brotherhood following in the footsteps of 18th-century macaroni or, more recently, movers of the peacock revolution of the 1960s, including designers John Stephen and Michael Fish, or designers such as Paul Smith, who reimagined such traditional staples as Harris tweed in bold new colourways?
The choices are, happily, infinite. Coats, jackets, trousers, shirts, jumpers and shoes are all available in rainbow hues for those prepared to turn their back on Brummell’s advice and regain the fizz of former generations.
The key lies in the mix. It’s probably not ideal to take inspiration from a Fauvist stilllife painting—the effect is likely to resemble the contents of a sweetie packet. A coloured shirt with a neutral jacket (or vice versa) and coloured trousers with neutral shoes (or vice versa) liven up the most traditional choices without frightening horses, grandmothers or, most difficult of all, drinking cronies.
By contrast, combinations of too many shades of the same colour—what fashion writers label ‘tonal layering’—are usually a no-no, as are head-to-foot ensembles of the same bold shade: this is a look suitable only for cruise-ship entertainers.
As with all good dressing—and, indeed, good decorating—any suggestion of undue contrivance is better avoided. Colourful dressing doesn’t, and shouldn’t, demand an obsessive focus on appearance. The late Hubert de Givenchy once claimed that ‘underdressing is the only sin. You should never be afraid to be the best-dressed man in the room’. It was not intended as an encouragement to narcissism.
Jeremy Hackett, founder of the menswear company that bears his name and exponent of unflagging, traditionally inspired male chic, offers sound advice for the unconverted in the form of a classic British compromise: stripes. ‘I find nothing more pleasing than stripes,’ he confirms, ‘whether it’s a blue-and-white seersucker jacket, a boldlybanded rugby top or a Bengal-striped Jermyn Street shirt.’
The wonderful thing about stripes? For every band of colour, there’s a corresponding band of something more neutral, usually white or cream.
It remains the case that, in the matter of everyday dress, a man is, as the saying goes, usually safe with navy. It all depends how highly he values safety.