The Gentleman’s Guide: "Attire"

Some Basics

As promised, here is another excerpt from my book, The Gentleman’s Guide to Manners, Sex, and Ruling the World (Sophia, 2021). This one deals with a perennially favorite topic: how a man should dress (and why).

You can buy the book on Amazon.com (paper or Kindle), but the publisher is currently offering a discount on the paperback: here. For a description of the book, see my website, www.StephenBaskerville.com, and click on the book’s cover.

Attire

All the advice books, from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first, emphasize a man’s clothing, and they do so for good reason.  Respectable attire conveys respect to others and therefore commands respect for ourselves.  Showing respect is especially important for men, because not doing so can have severe consequences.  One advice book from Renaissance Italy observes that “it often happens that duels are fought on no other account but that one man is not treated by another, whom he meets in public, with those marks of respect which are justly his due.”  Today’s equivalents — ghetto shootings, for example — are similarly attributed to one man being “dissed” (that is, “disrespected”) by another.  And it may be relevant to our topic that such altercations often seem to originate in disputes involving expensive shoes.  Some principles do not change with the culture.  Respect is essential for a man.

Since the late 1960’s many men seem to have become stuck in a state of arrested sartorial development.  Women have suffered less.  Yes, many women today also dress like boys, but they have the option of dressing however they like, and they have skillfully manipulated this freedom to their advantage.  Obligatory informality has not given men more options or freedom; it has made them feel self-conscious about looking too much like men, so instead they look like superannuated teenagers.  Importantly, overly informal attire is not only adolescent and, at worst, slovenly, it is also androgynous: it blurs the distinction between the sexes.  This is never in your interest because it diminishes your distinct status as a man, and most women really do not like it either.  They like to feel like women; thus their obsessive attention to fashion and beauty, even those who deplore this.  And, whether they admit it or not, they respect men who look like men. 

Living in post-Communist Eastern Europe during the 1990s, when people were finally able to buy quality clothing after decades of wearing factory uniforms, I was struck how elegant the women looked in public while accompanying men still habitually attired in boiler suits more appropriate for the steel mill.  By taking over the male functions of providing for the people, Communist governments emasculated men and deprived them of their self-respect.  A similar trend now operates on a more subtle level in the West, which some believe is by transformed by feminism and similar pressures into a system of soft communism: women dressing with options ranging from elegant to obscene, accompanied by men uniformly presenting themselves as teenage farm hands. …

So stop dressing like a little boy and act your age.  The standard rule is, “Let the dress suit the occasion,” and conform your appearance to the company you are with, the occasion, and the conventions of your society.  Both underdressing and overdressing can be taken by your company as an insult.  “If a gentleman is not absolutely certain as to the dress code for an occasion, he always prefers the risk of being underdressed to that of being overdressed,” one modern book suggests.  “The former may be interpreted as a simple misunderstanding; the latter suggests conscious premeditation.”  And what is wrong with premeditation?  This is the logic that has ratcheted us down to a level close to nihilism.  You need to be a leader and look like one, rather than like a follower, which means you should aim just a little higher than today’s norm.  If a modest shame is the response of some, this may not be such a bad thing.

Again, we dress to please others, as even the modern gentlemen’s manuals emphasize.  What they do not tell you is the logic.  You may already wear a coat and tie for your job.  But is your employer worthy of more respect than your family and friends or the woman in your life?  Why?  Because they pay your salary?  Because they control your livelihood?  They have power over you, so they get respect?  But your family has no such leverage over you, so you can present yourself to them in a cheap sweatshirt and stained trousers and show them that they do not matter?  You may not intend this, but on a subtle level this is precisely the message you are conveying.  And in a small way, it makes you a lackey and a coward.  Show the same respect to those you profess to love and like as you show to those you fear.  They will know it and respect you in return.  And then when you wear a coat and tie to your job you and others will know that it is because you are showing respect to everyone around you rather than just servility to the boss.  Your employer likewise will know it and may begin to regard you as a man to trust with greater responsibility.  A puerile journalist once sneered that Prime Minister John Major was “probably the last man left in Britain who wears a tie on Saturdays,” which did more to improve my opinion of John Major than any policies adopted by his government.

So get a coat and tie and wear them, even when they are not required.  And you should also own at least one conservative, well-made suit.  Please spare me the complaints about the cost.  You are not required to have it tailored on Saville Row.  Many men pay far more for the designer gym shoes and leather jackets that constitute today’s casual chic.  A high-end clothing store will still assist you to choose and fit your clothes, but in the bargain basements nowadays you are on your own, so a little preparation and research is a good idea.  Again, you can go online or to a contemporary advice book for men to learn how to fit a suit and a shirt, tie a tie, press your clothes, and shine your shoes. Once you start to develop this habit, you may well take an interest in it, become determined to do it correctly, and develop your own views on matters of individual discretion.  (The fastidious still insist, for example, that “For cuff buttons to be sewn on to a suit purely for show is regarded by many to be as bad as the wearing of a made-up bow tie or keeping their trousers up with a belt instead of braces.”  Quelle horreur.)  When you look like a gentleman, you will start to feel like one and want to act the part.

Do not go to the other extreme and become a dandy.  A dandy is “a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes,” as Thomas Carlyle described him, “so that [while] others dress to live, he lives to dress.”  Or worse, a fop.  An act of nonconformity should have a defensible reason, and a measure of eccentricity can be endearing, if you know how to pull it off without being taken for a buffoon.  An elevated appreciation for beauty and aesthetics — whether in women, nature, the arts, or one’s own appearance — is part of “the good life” that a gentleman understands.  But making aesthetics an end in itself will make you appear shallow.  While a man should look neat, well groomed, and professional, a man’s dress is always something of a uniform, which conveys an acceptance of duty.  That is why a gentleman’s suit tends to be limited to gray, dark blue, and (in the country) brown, rather than bright colors.  A persistent misconception holds that a first suit should be black, but reliable authorities nowadays regard black suits as appropriate only for waiters and undertakers. 

The most formal dress, like black tie and white tie, is the most uniform of all.  Unlike a woman, a man is expected to fit in, not stand out.  In eighteenth-century Britain, “In any public place one blue- or black-coated gentleman looked and behaved much like another.”  This is not “boring,” nor does it prevent you from expressing your individuality.  Your tie is the one accessory that allows you to make a personal statement, within limits.  All this is the visual manifestation of the understatement and self-effacement that epitomizes the gentleman.  Self-advertisement is not gentlemanly, and vanity is unmanly.  She is permitted to adjust her clothing, check her appearance in a mirror, attend to her hair, and become distraught if something is amiss or becomes disheveled.  You may not. 

Neither do you need to become a slave to what one nineteenth-century advice writer called “the tyrant fashion,” which can become a bad habit in matters other than sartorial.  Adopting an accepted, time-honored style of dress is an effective defense against having to succumb to the latest fads, and all the expense and fuss they entail.  Moreover, rejecting fads in clothing is good practice for resisting them elsewhere, for changing and frivolous fashions abound in many other realms of life: culture, education, politics, journalism, religion, scholarship, and more.  Our most highly-educated sophisticates, who rule lofty domains like the arts, the media, academia, and the church, and who flatter themselves that they stand above the vulgarities of the great unwashed, readily jump onto the silliest bandwagons as a substitute for having to exercise their brains.  This is not new either:  “When the same caprice which gives law to the wardrobe extends itself to the library…the schools… religion, it is time that reason should vindicate her rights against the encroachments of folly.”

Even in casual wear, some little adjustments can make a difference.  Get some comfortable trousers that are not blue jeans and walking shoes that are not for the gym.  A knit shirt with a collar looks much better than a T-shirt with advertising that turns your chest and back into a public placard.  A comfortable, inexpensive sport coat even for casual wear makes clear that you are a man of self-respect and spares the ladies from having to look at your hairy arms and sweaty back and armpits (as well as providing convenient pockets).  While you are at it, it may be time to consider dispensing with the tattoos and body piercings and backward baseball caps.

Again, dressing like a child means reverting to the gender neutrality of childhood, and “gender neutrality” is always at the expense of men because it denies the importance of masculinity and masculine achievement.  Proper dress conveys not only seriousness and professionalism, but also masculinity.  It is no accident that the more formal dress becomes the more sex-specific it is, whereas informal clothing is almost indistinguishable between men and women, or boys and girls.  Wearing a coat and tie not only shows respect to others; it also declares your readiness to accept responsibility in general and the specific responsibilities of manhood -- responsibilities, incidentally, that women do not have and, feminist claims notwithstanding, do not want. 

You will be surprised how differently people treat you.  When you enter a shop and the clerks rush up to you, asking, “May I help you?” it will be from a desire to please and serve you rather than a concern that you might be there to steal something.  You will be addressed as “sir” with a tone of authenticity.  Women will look at you differently, but so will men.  People will trust you more and be more willing to entrust you with responsibilities.  People are not just treating you differently; they are thinking about you differently.

Most importantly you will begin to act the part because you will begin to think differently about yourself.  This is not hypocrisy, because you will not let it become that, by changing your behavior and habits accordingly.  If you look like a gentleman, you will be more likely to want to act like one.  Your appearance will be a challenge you must live up to (or, because a gentleman always uses correct grammar, up to which you must live).  It also does not hurt that good clothing is said to make you look younger, which helps you generally but also in your relations with women.

In fact, your attire says many things about you, and it conveys both to and from you many things, but one thing it gives you is authority.  And here is where I will get into serious trouble.  For if you look and behave like a gentleman, you acquire the authority to insist that she looks and behaves like a lady.