How To Tie A Windsor Knot
A. A. Gill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Gill) defines vegetarians as “people who get pleasure from not eating things” and, being a long established non-carniverous sort (an ovo-vegetarian, if you’re interested) it seems that this pleasure in denial has extended to my sense of dress as well.
The passage of the last few years can be described as thus*:
* It’s important that I mention at this point that I was a ’junglist’, one of those quasi b-boy skaty sorts, until this date.
27 years - Gave up wearing baseball caps and baggy jeans (the baggy jeans thing has an added bonus, I lost a lot of weight that year and as we all know, a nice pair of boot cuts make you look taller - a big bonus if one was born with abnormally short legs for ones height).
28 years - Gave up wearing hooded tops and skate trainers (back into the ubiquitous Adidas Superstar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas_Superstar - a design classic).
29 years - Out go T-shirts (especially vile obviously surf/skate branded items) for any kind of (non sporting) social function.
That year saw the return of formal shirts and V necked sweaters through the year and I found myself beginning to find a fondness for 1930’s/40’s casual looks, (“Wouldn’t it be great if I dressed like someone out of “The Talented Mr. Ripley!” I thought to myself), so much so, that I bought myself a tweed suit and a pair of brogues. An outfit (my Ernest Hemmingway outfit, I christened it) that I have hitherto been too chickenshit to wear out once.
That notwithstanding, I’ve kept it up. For most of that year and this, I have worn a collar and shoes when venturing out. Not the full Hemmingway, but a start.
This Sunday just gone, I was standing in my kitchen making the legendary “Hummus a la Slabface” when my flatmate came in, stated that I looked nice and asked me where I was off out to. Nowhere - I responded. But it’s nice to know that your efforts are appreciated, isn’t it.
I stumbled across a couple of blogs recently by chaps giving out sartorial advice to men of a similar disposition (http://putthison.com/, being an American one, with http://bespoke-me.blogspot.com/ having slightly more Londoncentric tone) that I very much enjoyed. The opinion of the former site is that men should have ‘must own’ items much like the ladies and their ‘little black dress’ (I agree - where would one be without ones plain black shirt, for instance?).
And of course: the most important piece of sartorial advice for a man anywhere: http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-tie-a-tie-using-a-full-windsor-knot
Postscript: Additionally, at the behest of a previously mentioned friend, I will shortly be attempting to bring back the cravat. You heard it here first.
