November 2014 Hong Kong Tatler

Walking
the
Line
Illustrations angela ho
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Modern-day dress codes can be baffling.
When is it okay, if ever, to pair pink yoga pants
with a Chanel jacket? Does black tie really mean
that any more? Mark Graham picks his
way gingerly through the sartorial minefield
classes for Chinese executives explaining the
often arcane ways of Western protocol; a
recent assignment was to prepare a group of
mainland bank executives for a visit to strictly
formal Royal Ascot, where even the slightest
breach of the dress code, or an idiosyncratic
interpretation, would not be tolerated.
“China has developed in every category at
speed and when it comes to fashion there is
a certain vacuum in knowledge as to what is
suitable for certain occasions. You see women
wearing cocktail dresses to the office, which
you would not see in London, New York or
Paris. There again, who says you can’t? It is all
about the context. When I was living in New
York, people would get dressed up for the
opera. I went to a symphonic orchestra event in
Shanghai and I was the only one in a suit. There
were people in flip-flops and shorts.
“If you take a step back, then dress codes are
only rules that society has set over many, many
years and that change with time. In general,
dress codes have become more relaxed
and that gives people the freedom
to express themselves. As a rule,
you should enter into the spirit and
respect the wishes of your host.”
That’s a piece of advice that sits
well with dress-code stickler Ophélie
Renouard, organiser of Le Bal des
Débutantes. The annual Paris
extravaganza, more commonly
referred to as the Crillon Ball,
is a whirlwind of dress fittings,
shopping and sightseeing
for the young women who
fly in each November.
Among previous Crillon
Ball debs have been
The dress-code breach was either a tasteless, Bao Bao Wan, the first
rude gesture likely to offend hosts, or perhaps a mainland Chinese to
statement for individuality, a refusal to accept participate, and Sophia
hide-bound rules set many moons ago by
Rose Stallone, the
Victorian men. Shanghai-based style consultant daughter of actionJames Hebbert, who witnessed the gold lamé
man Sylvester.
display with open-mouthed amazement, is still
Renouard, a fussily
unsure which path the individual was taking.
immaculate dresser,
“I’ve always been a firm believer that if you brooks no bending of
can wear an outfit confidently, then it doesn’t
the rules. “If you show
matter what others think,” says Hebbert,
up at Le Bal in jeans,
chuckling at the memory. “But this chap was
you stay at the door, no
certainly obliviously pushing the boundaries.
matter who you are,”
He looked like a game-show host—the suit
she says. “Jeans are for
was all spangly gold and had Gucci logos all
farmers. I like the idea of
over. I don’t think it was real. But he had the
formal occasions; I do not
confidence to do it, so why not?”
like people showing up to
Hebbert runs Seatton, a company that
formal occasions in rags. I
advises up-market British brands on how
take it as a lack of respect
to enter the China market. He also hosts
and education.”
He
The Frenchwoman has researched dress
codes and concluded that they began in the
distant days of the Persian empire, when attire
and manners marked out the aristocracy from
the peasantry. More recently, the British used
clothing as an identifier of power, prestige
and rank across their empire. It is one reason
bankers in Hong Kong swelter in three-piece
suits during the humid cauldron of summer.
Even with a lavish budget and a willingness
to follow the rules, people still have ample
room to make blunders. Men who wear,
for example, dollar-sign braces or flowerpatterned bow ties strive for individuality and
end up demonstrating their asininity.
Says Renouard, “We have two kinds of faux
pas: the strictly social one and the aesthetic
one. I see a lot of aesthetic faux pas. Sometimes
with men or women wearing very expensive
outfits, then it is the wrong cut or worn with
the wrong shoes. I only like gym shoes with
a gym outfit. Dressing too young is a big
aesthetic faux pas, like showing too much flesh.
Growing old harmoniously is a talent. I like the
way older Asian women look. I like the idea
of style that is like a uniform. Look at Jackie
Kennedy; she was wearing the same style all
her life with little changes to adapt to her age
and fashion. She knew what made her look her
best and she followed it all her life.
“The social faux pas has to do with strict
etiquette and education, such as wearing
brown shoes with a suit, short socks that
show the legs, white socks with a suit, a black
necktie, the wrong jewellery and too much
jewellery for the occasion, like the beach.”
strode through the serried ranks of
sartorial drabness with the aplomb of a true
showman, gold lamé suit shimmering and
dazzling. Astonished onlookers were unsure
whether the strutting vision of peacockery
was part of the car-launch extravaganza or
an automobile aficionado with a penchant
for outlandish dressing. It was, it turned out,
the latter. The flamboyant Shanghai citizen,
decked out like a Las Vegas showman, felt
confident enough to eschew the car-show
protocols—formal suit, or at least smart
casual—and arrive dandied up to the gills.
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Smart casual emerged as a dress code in the
United States, allowing corporate types the
chance to shuck off their regimented office
uniforms in favour of equally regimented
casual duds—chinos, polo shirts and boat
shoes. As GQ columnist Glenn O’Brien points
out in an essay on dress codes, everyone in
modern offices these days seems to be dressed
down in the manner of Silicon Valley. “The old
code didn’t die hard—it just sort of petered
out, because it didn’t represent what it once
did,” O’Brien says. “The suit was a class
uniform. It implied a certain formality and
professionalism. But over the years it devolved
into the mode of the rank and file—a uniform.”
US writer Richard Torregrossa—who has
published a biography of style icon Cary
Grant and recently launched Terminal Life,
the first novel in his Suited Hero series—has
strong, even strident, views on dress codes.
“I, for one, am glad to see them
go,” he says. “They’re fascist. It
means more, and
reveals one’s
character and value system, when
you dress well of your own
accord.
I realise they have their place at
private
clubs, black-tie events and
other events where formal dress is
required.
But I’ve been to formal
affairs where men think they’re too
hip to follow the rules.
It’s rude.
Sometimes you must dress for
other people
and the occasion. It’s
called good manners.
“The worst
faux pas is not
mixing seemingly incongruous
garments like yoga pants with
a
Chanel jacket; it’s ill-fitting
clothes. The most egregious
offender is
suffocatingly tight clothes that
expose unsightly bulges. The
tide is against
dress codes, so you can’t be stuck in the
past. But it doesn’t
mean you must show
up looking like a scruff. Cary Grant’s
secret
was staying in, as he called it, ‘the middle
of fashion.’ By that he
meant wearing suits
that are not self-consciously fashionable,
nor overly
conservative or dated. Lapels
should neither be too wide nor too narrow,
the
trousers neither too tight nor too loose,
the coats neither too
short nor too long.
‘Simplicity to me,’ he said, ‘has always been
the essence
of good taste.’”
Even sophisticated celebrities can get it
horribly wrong, as the world’s most influential
style guru, US Vogue editor Anna Wintour,
discovered when hosting her annual Met
Ball gala, with “white tie and decorations”
stipulated as the dress code. “I had no idea how
much panic this would make the men of New
York, and all of the world, think about their
outfits,” Wintour told an interviewer. “Tom
Ford said he had not only had hundreds of men
coming in asking him to explain what ‘white
tie’ meant, they were very, very confused by
‘decorations.’ There were a couple of people
who thought that meant Christmas tree
decorations and ornaments, and could Tom
Ford please pick them out.”
That is not a mistake Hong Kong-raised Ed
Olver would make after an early career in the
highly formal, rigidly prescribed world of an
ultra-elite British Army regiment. Olver was an
adjutant with the Household Cavalry, a job that
involved dressing up in a fabulously flamboyant
uniform, including vintage silver breastplate
and red-plumed helmet, as well as rather more
utilitarian camouflage gear for dangerous
expeditions into the deserts of Iraq.
Nowadays, Olver, the
co-founder and director
of British Polo Day, a
travelling roadshow that
puts on tournaments in
various cities, including
Beijing, Bangkok and
Singapore, can generally
be found in more casual
garb, but he still maintains
a wardrobe that caters to
any occasion, be it wading
through mud at a polo
tournament or dining with
the British ambassador
afterwards. The sport is
played and watched by
the elite, yet the sartorial
rules are rather more
relaxed than most would imagine. In fact, Olver
maintains it is polo outsiders who tend to fuss
over what they should wear to an event.
“It is not prescribed like at Ascot or Henley,”
he says, referring to two of the flagship events
on the British social calendar. “Traditionally,
you would have seen the panama hat and
blazer, but now we have people who are
inexperienced and some of them are going
super flamboyant. Dressing up is not necessarily
normal in the context of polo; for women, it’s
usually wedges and floaty dresses, but now
hats are coming into it. I think that’s part of the
fun—how people choose to express themselves.
“If someone feels good and they are
expressing themselves, that’s fine. Flip-flops and
shorts would be taken as not respecting the
occasion; I think you would accuse people of
ignorance or disrespect if they turn up like that.
It is understanding the code of the occasion,
“it’s crying
out for
someone to
revisit the
principle
of dressing
up”
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like when you go hunting—you are wearing a
uniform that means you are subscribing to the
common values of those people.”
The dashing former officer also has views on
what women should wear, or what catches his
eye. “I like someone who has the confidence
to wear a backless dress. I like shoes that are
really beautiful, like Louboutin and Manolo
Blahnik. Jewellery is important too. I like that
some women can wear a plastic bag and look
good because of the confidence and glamour
that they emanate. I think that is exciting.”
Olver is based in London, where there was a
major kerfuffle a few years ago when a member
of the trendy Soho Club was denied entry for
being too formally dressed. The rules stipulate
casual garb should be worn when entering the
premises. Veteran style commentator Peter
York explained the logic to readers of The
Independent newspaper, reasoning that it was
more than just the suit and tie that offended;
the individual in question was also guilty of
being in late middle age. “The new synthesis
of Soho Bohemia, ’90s Hollywood ‘player’
culture and British marcoms [marketing/
communications] demands a casual uniform,”
says York. “Anything else would obviously
upset members’ quiet enjoyment, remind them
of Twickenham and Gerrards Cross, of blacktie rubber-chicken dinners in hotel ballrooms,
of raising your glasses to the queen.”
Formality is far from finished, though. It
is even making something of a comeback,
according to Mark Finch, owner of the
venerable London tailor Thresher & Glenny,
which during its 300 years has made clothing
for explorer David Livingstone, naval hero
Horatio Nelson, Italian leader Giuseppe
Garibaldi and Wild West icon Buffalo Bill.
Many clients in conservatively dressed
professions such as the law add a touch of
individuality by ordering linings in bright
colours and choosing eye-catching socks; the
tailor offers various Nelson-themed long socks
in colours such as lobster pink and ensign
scarlet. Says Finch, “I think it’s crying out for
someone to revisit the principle of dressing
up. I think it tends to go in cycles; we might
have reached the tip of the iceberg in terms of
dressing down and it might go the other way.
We are seeing trouser-round-the-ankle chaps
that are now keen to get ‘proper’ smart suits.”
Whatever the future of dress codes, it’s safe
to predict head-to-toe gold lamé will always
ensure that everyone pays attention. Some
will look on with approbation, or admiration,
and some with awe at the sheer brass neck of
someone so sartorially uninhibited.
hong kong tatler homes . may 2014
Faux
Pas
We’ve all committed fashion blunders in public.
Here are some modern sartorial pitfalls to avoid
A tie should graze your belt buckle
or, if you’re Italian, fall just below it.
Any longer and you’ll look clownish
Bold pieces need to stand out,
so don’t overcrowd a statement
necklace with earrings and rings
Square-toed shoes never look
flattering. Your feet are not square
and nor should your shoes be
Leggings aren’t trousers or tights,
so don’t wear them with short tops
or under skirts or dresses
Exercise some restraint when
it comes to pocket squares by
keeping them neatly folded
Want to show off your cleavage?
Go for either the top, middle or side
view—never all three at once
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