Fashion tips may be everywhere but men are less frequently the subject of them. Next month, however, the influential ABC of Men’s Fashion by Hardy Amies, who wrote a column for Esquire alongside his duties dressing Queen Elizabeth II, is being reprinted by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It was first published in 1964 and its reissue coincides with the opening of the designer’s archive on Savile Row. Amies’s strict male dress code — with commandments on everything from socks to the summer wardrobe — still makes for compelling reading. So we assembled a group of menswear editors to analyze some of his style diktats. Would they still hold fast 45 years on?DON’T MAKE EVERYTHING MATCH
Hardy says: “To achieve the nonchalance which is absolutely necessary for a man, one article at least must not match. For instance, you can wear a dark blue suit and tie with a pale blue shirt and navy blue socks, but you must then have a patterned silk handkerchief, say in dark red or a paisley design of green and brown; or you could stick to a blue handkerchief and have dark red socks.”
A command with staying power. This anti-matchy-matchy advice is so Bruno, who insists that an army camouflage uniform needs a scarf to break it up. Head-to-toe looks do nothing for GQ’s associate editor, Robert Johnston, either. “If everything is blue-blue, tone-tone, perfect-perfect, it looks dull,” he says. “It’s really nice to have something that jars the eye.” Plus, dandyish touches, says Mansel Fletcher, executive style editor of Esquire, are coming back.
BEWARE THE BOW-TIE WEARER
Hardy says: “By day, often in patterned or spotted foulard, it is usually worn by individualists … On less genial characters, it can have an aggressive air and can arouse some kind of resentment at first meeting of a new acquaintance.”
He could be right. Is there anything more deliberately “fashion” right now than the bow tie? From the bookish Doctor Who makeover, to Kanye West and Simon Le Bon, the bow tie is everywhere. Richard Gray, editor of 10 Men, may not experience the aggression on meeting a bow-tie wearer that Amies describes, but neither is he impressed: “I’m sick to the death of bow ties. It’s so forced and self regarding.”
AVOID SANDALS AND SHORTS
Hardy says: “Always wear a collar and tie in a town, even if it’s by the sea, after six o’clock. Never wear shorts except actually on the beach or on a walking tour. All short sleeve shirts look ghastly. Sandals are hell, except on the beach where you want to take them off: or on a boat. And worn with socks are super hell.”
Lighten up. We’re on holiday, Hardy. These issues totally divided the panel. Johnston hates sandals in the city. Fletcher describes socks with sandals as a bit “German bible camp,” a look Gray likes exactly because it feels a bit “awkward.” The short-sleeved shirt, an item I find wholly underrated, is deemed acceptable by Fletcher only if “you’re flying a plane.” Fellow short-sleeve fan Gray, however, suggests styling them in the “classic American preppy way, with a white T-shirt underneath, top button open and roll back the sleeve. Twice. More Richie Cunningham, less Hoxton Square.” Happy days.
MEN CAN WEAR RED
Hardy thinks scarlet is “perhaps the most masculine of all colors,” adding the caveat that “its very flamboyancy limits its use.”
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