Today

32 December/January April/May 2011 2015/16 Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today www.KCWToday.co.uk 020 7738 2348
December/January 2015/16
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
33
Gentlemen’s Fashion
Lifestyle
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
White tie
and flying
escutcheons
By John Springs
Dandy
About
Town
There was that discernible, rasping
dry cackle from the Sartorial
Gods, otherwise known as the
popular press, when Opposition Leader
Jeremy Corbyn generously presented
himself at a gala dinner for the Chinese
President all togged out in white tie.
Under this gaze he self consciously
succumbed to the heat of the crimson
razor of humiliation. A not-quitestiff
enough and undulating fronted
dickey shirt, tail coat, bat wing tie do
not indulge a socialist’s credentials to
the proper extent. But JC was by then
deep in a hole of compromise which
naturally resulted in him losing on both
sides. It’s black or white, you can’t have
it both ways. No wonder he looked as
though he just emerged from being
jostled by Scottish football supporters
on a crowded Piccadilly Line, his rubber
soled, traffic warden’s boots propelling
him up the escalator. A dead giveaway
is when the wearer absentmindedly sits
on his tails rather than gives them a
quick wafting flick before he goes down;
you used to be given this piece of useful
instruction by the man who rents them
out; creased tails are right out. It’s called
a ‘dickey’ from the Cockney rhyming
slang, ‘Dickey Dirt: shirt’ and it’s where
your ‘dickey bow’ tie gets its title. Had I
been consulted by Labour HQ , I would
have suggested a tail dress suit with
cuffs, collar, and shirtfront made from
bio-degradable recyclable paper, widely
used by scriveners and office lackeys of
the 19th century. It’s no coincidence that
the demise of formal white tie and the
increase in alarming levels of climate
change occur at almost exactly the same
date. In 1849, Richard Mullins Moody,
tie manufacturer, began a range of cutprice
collars, shirts etc. made from paper.
The Beardsley-esque clerk in Alphonse
Daudet’s pot boiler The Nabob spends
his evenings carefully cutting out his
cuffs and collars from paper to look “the
business”. Sometimes a Dandy has to cut
corners and the challenge can be half the
fun of it; it’s not all about throwing large
wads around Savile Row. The admired
aesthete Cecil Beaton bought his suits
from Hong Kong or Gillingham in
Dorset, his shirts well worn and frayed
still cut a dash; “It’s all how you wear it!”.
White tie with cutaway tailcoat,
fine linen starched shirtfront stiff as a
cuirass with ivory waistcoat has a direct
genetic link from the sober Regency
rebellion that rose against all that
powdery silk puffery and ruffles that
preceded it. Nowadays I’m witness to
so many parallels in and around some
areas of London to the days of the early
1930s and the Great Depression, the
polarisation between wealthy ostentation
and the very poor. What fascinates is the
renewed interest, mostly by a younger
generation, in white tie with these dressy
affairs happening in private houses. No
telly period drama is complete without
some toff discharging blood all over
his pristine shirt front, it’s a satisfying
juxtaposition for a non-too subtle drama
but it probably awakens an awareness
that something of value that once held
sway has been lost.
Retailers are selling and stocking far
more in the way of grand formal evening
wear these days than ever, which means
somebody must be throwing grand
parties and others are dressing up to go
to them.
The tailcoats of the twenties were
heavy affairs, all 20 ounce wool, and
must have been stiflingly hot; the
backless waistcoat was an attempt at
some sort of cooling system, but what
an embellishment! The whole thing
smacked of flying escutcheons and the
webbed toes of highborn inbreeding at
play. By the thirties advances in cloth
manufacturing enabled evening wear to
be practically mass produced. The Prince
of Wales became the executant of the
trend of wearing his tails and trousers
in a Midnight Blue colour instead
of the accepted black. In the chrome
and mirror-balled nightclubs the blue
glowered an eye-catching ‘blacker than
black’.
As ever, Hollywood imparted a big
influence on style at the time. The great
hoofer Fred Astaire frequented much
of Savile Row and Jermyn Street while
living and performing in London in the
1920s and continued to have his suits
made at Anderson and Shepherd for
many years. His tail coat and trousers
were specially cut to allow more freedom
for his thrashing limbs during dance
routines; the armscye where the sleeve
meets the body was made larger, more
free, the trousers cut looser but not
noticeably. The whole ensemble was just
less than a half size too large, which he
preferred. He was at his most elegant
best in the 1936 movie production
Swing Time, alas not shown on telly
much these days probably due to one
unfortunate dance sequence where Fred
performs his routine in black face. Still,
one affectation that he continued all his
life that he picked up while living in
England was using a wool tie as a belt.
By the late 1930s the Golden Age of
White Tie was a dwindling light and a
group of young very wealthy men from
a small hamlet in Upstate New York
wanted a less formal evening wear that
was more practical when they came into
Grand Central Station for an evening
of delights and to chase the ladies. The
town, of course, was Tuxedo Park; black
tie, dress shirt and short tail-less coat,
double or singled breasted, the lapels
peaked or shawled in silk satin. After a
game of racquets at the club, nip into
black tie, a cocktail or three, then off
with no need for a manservant to help
pin and plug you together.
The British crooner Jack Buchanan
claimed to have introduced the doublebreasted
dinner jacket to the UK
shortly afterwards. But don’t forget
the cummerbund, a silk sash wound
around the waist in place of a waistcoat,
and covering up the dreaded top of
the trousers demarcation. These came
about from military dress gear and,
as the name suggests, were sported
around the officers mess in Asia and
the sultry far East. Sir Thomas Picton
became renowned as the highest ranking
officer to fall at Waterloo, cummerbund
resplendent. You can see him wearing
it in his portrait by Thomas Lawrence.
The pleats were useful to store coins in
to hand out for tips. Picton was famously
shot dead through his top hat by cannon
fire on the charge, although rumours
suggest that being such an unpleasant
and sadistic man, hated by most, it was
an opportunity to be dispatched by one
of his own cavalrymen.
In the late 1930s the white mess
jacket, more or less a tailcoat docked of
its tails and popular with British Naval
officers briefly became the evening
wear of the American yacht owning
playboys and the Hollywood set. In light
gabardine or duck, it had its limitations;
the high cut and exposure at the rear
failed to flatter the fuller figure, however,
the drape of tails covered a multitude of
indulgence.
So now, with party season in full flow,
is the time to invest, in this case longterm,
in a set of tails and an array of silk
ties, black and white. But I guarantee
it will be worthwhile. The Men’s Dress
Reform Party (1929-1937), called
out for the abolition of tight, starched
restricting clothing which lacerated the
jugular rendering the wearer dazed and
half-cocked. Celluloid collars were the
equivalent of a magnesium chassis on a
racing car; a tremendous fire risk true,
but elegance comes at a price.
And if you’re searching for a truly
unique gift idea, look no further than
than the Golden Closet website (www.
thegoldencloset.com). A superb (used)
vintage Sulka butterfly black silk bow tie
as worn on stage by one Frank Sinatra. A
mere $1,250.00.
Illustration © John Springs
A lot of Beauty
Creams do not do
what they say on
the tin
By Eva Lewis
A
report, called
Deception in Cosmetics
Advertising, has analysed
cosmetics advertising claims and
found the majority of them to be
either false or unsubstantiated.
Many consumers are completely
unaware the extent to which they
are being deceived.
The report examined advertising claims
made in fashion magazine advertising.
They studied up to 300 full page adverts
in publications such as Vogue and
Glamour, looking at make-up, skincare,
body products and others.
Research judges sorted the claims
into the following categories; ‘outright
lie’, ‘omission’, ‘vague’ and ‘acceptable’.
Whilst an outright lie had no shred of
truth whatsoever, an omission meant
the claim fails to include important
History’s weirdest
diets
By Jade Parker
Weight loss has become a massive
global industry, with its value expected
to reach £220 billion by 2017. But it
seems the fad of losing weight isn’t a new
craze, looking back into history many
horrifying regimes were followed in the
quest to lose those extra pounds.
Lord Byron’s vinegar diet:
During the 1820s famed poet Lord
Byron adopted a very odd diet to keep
his figure trim, drinking vinegar daily
and soaking anything else he ate in the
stuff. His fame and influence permeated
young society, kick starting the cultural
obsession with dieting.
Cigarette diet: Today, we all have it
drummed into our heads that cigarettes
are bad so it may come as a surprise, that
in the first half of the 20th Century, it
was normal for cigarette manufacturers
to advertise them as a weight loss aid.
“Light a Lucky and you’ll never miss
sweets that make you fat”, proclaimed
one advert in 1929.
Tapeworm diet: Not for the
faint-hearted, the craze of swallowing
tapeworm cysts became popular in the
1950s. However, with parasites growing
information needed to evaluate its
truthfulness. Vague meant containing a
phrase too broad to have a clear meaning.
A shocking 621 of the 757 claims were
deemed to be either a lie, omission or
vague and only 136 were acceptable
to the judges. Repetitive claims that
were highlighted by the judges as being
deceptive were: ‘dermatologically tested’,
‘natural’, ‘beautifies’ and ‘soothes the
senses’.
Concern was given to cosmeceutical
products that say they have aesthetic
and medicinal properties. Even if
consumers look carefully at their
purchases the claims that are made often
go unregulated and there are a lot of grey
areas.
Claims like ‘backed by science’ and
‘clinically proven’ are now debateable.
The authors of the report said, “There is
usually no substantiation of these claims,
and those who back the claims with
scientific evidence and consumer testing
often use questionable methodologies for
their substantiation.”
The research concludes that it is
in the advertiser’s best interest to give
consumers clarity and evidence to
support a product’s claims. When it
comes to scientific claims “the concrete
evidence of ingredients, the scientific
research processes used and lab
results should be provided in laymen’s
terminology”, advised the authors.
Aesthetic Medicine is keeping a keen eye
on the progress. www.aestheticmed.co.uk
up to 9 metres in length it was a perilous
weight loss strategy.
Sleeping beauty diet: Rumoured
to be favoured by Elvis Presley,
the sleeping beauty diet picked up
momentum in the 1970s. Instead of
eating sensibly or exercising, followers
of the regime were sedated for days at a
time. After all you can’t eat cake when
you’re asleep.
Hallelujah diet: If you want to
lose weight in a holy way the Hallelujah
diet could be the one. Formulated in
the 1990s the diet is based on only
consuming what Adam and Eve ate in
the Garden of Eden. The view on eating
apples is still undecided.
Male Grooming is Becoming Big
Business
These days, so many men are spending
money looking after themselves, the
male grooming market in the UK has
been valued at well over £1.5bn. Salons
and spas are feeling the urge to change
their ways and start to market for men
by using the kind of language and
branding that would attract them. A
few salons have been ahead of the game
and stocking products for men for years.
My salons have always welcomed men.
However, I know that while men do
visit salons nationwide and enjoy the
experience, often they can be put off by
the environment and jargon, which is
still very female-orientated.
Salon and spa owners are now asking
vital questions about how to get into the
mind of the male. In my experience, men
do not want to waste their time and they
don’t need fanciness. They want products
and treatments which do what they say
on the tin. New slogans are coming out
like ‘recharge in 60 minutes’ and research
reports that men respond better to words
like ‘formula’ and ‘complex’
Most treatment brochures prove
indecipherable to the male population,
with unfamiliar terms that are likely
to have him running out of the door.
The new buzzwords for the grooming
industry are ‘comfort’ and ‘satisfaction’,
rather than ‘pampering’ or ‘luxury’.
Salons and spas employing this kind
Taking beauty to
the wild side
By May Bulman
Bull semen, sheep placenta, bird
excrement… It may sound like a list of
minerals in a biology lab, but this could
be your next beauty treatment wish list.
Yes, it’s a new year and time to
take a more daring approach to beauty.
Celebrities have started smearing
excrement on their faces, and it’s time for
us to follow suite. Here are three animalsourced
beauty must-haves for 2016.
First up, a favorite of Victoria
Beckham, sheep placenta is the
new product for de-aging skin and
rejuvenating it to a more youthful
appearance.
Countless reviews tell that the
treatment provides excellent results, and
with it all ethically harvested from sheep
post birth, you can admire your sheepsoft
skin rest; assured that no harm is
caused to the animals.
Next is another celeb favorite, but
this time in the form of nightingale
‘droppings’, or more plainly put, bird
crap.
Tom Cruise is a keen advocate for
having bird excrement pasted on his
face, so why aren’t you? Also known as
of language have found the financial
benefits as men are encouraged to spend
their money.
Salon staff should be encouraged not
to let men feel embarrassed by keeping
them waiting and hanging around
aimlessly at reception. A lot of men do
not like to sit in the windows. Decor can
also be a significant factor in drawing in
customers with more male-friendly plain
colours. Strong colours and simple words
with force make a big difference. Look
to television to see how advertising is
targeting men.
Men, like everyone else, do like to
feel and look good about themselves.
Unfortunately, up until now, many salons
have been considered a no-go area.
But the times – they are a changing!
Eva Lewis
www.monochromeskincare.com
a ‘geisha facial’, it has apparently been
used as a cleanser for centuries, so get
with the program and get bird poop on
your cheeks.
Finally, a local delicacy imported to
Knightsbridge from the rural lands of
somewhere like Gloucestershire, bull
semen conditioner could be your answer
to achieving soft locks.
Used in the ‘deluxe blow dry’ at
Hari’s hairdresser, it turns out the
reproductive fluid of a bull is a real
hair-softener. And there are no fears of
it running out, with owner Hari Salem
assuring us that “it will be an ongoing
treatment as long as the bulls perform”.
There we have it: three ways to
enhance your image in the new year
with entirely naturally-sourced beauty
products. Go wild.