The sad state of men Morning Formal Attire @ the Epsom Derby 2012

I was in the Queen's Stand at the Epsom Derby yesterday where the admission dresscode was "Morning Coat or Morning Suit" for men.
I have to report that the vast majority of men did not comply with the general rules of morning attires and looked poorly put together. This may be related to the fact that at Epsom you can get the tickets to the Queen's Stand simply by buying in whilst at Ascot you need to be invited to the royal Enclosure, and thus at Epsom you are more likely find people that have no clue about dressing well.

All mens aside of working staff, were in either formal Morning attire or national dress. the major problem was in my eye that most wear wearing bad fitting rental, and a lot of them, clearly wearing wedding rental attire (cravats, floral waistcoat, etc), but what I really noted as negative was that the vast majority had unproper shoes: some light brown modern stuff, lots of confy black leather of many designs, some slips on and dricing shoes, lots of cheap/squared toes etc. The ones with a bit better shoes wore different types of captoes brogues and i only noticed probably a dozen men wearing plain captoes Oxfords and some captoes derby (for comfort I wore punched captoe derby, that clearly looked more appropriate that 99.9% of what was there.

Just to give a better idea of the scale of the above, the place was sold out and there were several hundreds of men in attendance, and again, i have personally crossed only a dozen of men dressed properly, with one or two dandys clearly over doing it.

I think this may also be the reason why Royal Ascot this year has thighten the dress code even further, specifying "no cravats" and for the first time "only black shoes allowed".

Below a couple of pictures of me, The black herringbone morning coat and buff linen waistcoat are RTW, as is the Charvet tie. The contrasting collar shirt is the Vincenzo Prisco's I have previously posted about and the Houndstooth trousers in H lesser are bespoke by Gianni Volpe as recently posted (worn with Albert Thurston's grey boxcloth suspenders)

(please note that there was a bit of wind that pushed the light trousers against my legs and I also had plenty of coins in my pocket that makes the trouser look not fitting well)

a closer view for some details:

Morning dress is difficult to pull off. If the vast majority of people can't get a basic navy suit right for workwear, then I don't know why you expect anyone to dress particularly well at the Derby. In fact, despite your best efforts, I don't think you look particularly good yourself (sorry!) Your waistcoat, for example, was a bad choice in terms of colour, texture, style, and fit. And I don't know where your shoes are from, but they do not look good at all. The morning coat also looks like it has no waist, but it's hard tell from the photos.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. - Matthew 7:5



Loathing said:

Morning dress is difficult to pull off. If the vast majority of people can't get a basic navy suit right for workwear, then I don't know why you expect anyone to dress particularly well at the Derby. In fact, despite your best efforts, I don't think you look particularly good yourself (sorry!) Your waistcoat, for example, was a bad choice in terms of colour, texture, style, and fit. And I don't know where your shoes are from, but they do not look good at all. The morning coat also looks like it has no waist, but it's hard tell from the photos.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. - Matthew 7:5

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Fair enough and thanks for the feedback; as you say it is difficult to judge from these pictures the fit, in fact in my eyes do not reflect at all as I saw myself in the mirror. However, buff linen it is very appropriate and traditional, so we have agree to disagree. This particular colour is the same I have in the H Lesser Formal Swatch book. In terms of style, I would have liked one with lapels but could not find one done well RTW. There were people yesterday wearing double breasted waistcoat that were showing about 10cm of shirt between the bottom of the waistcoat and the top of the trouser, often worn without suspenders and with belt loops. Shoes were Jeffrey West Captoe Derby, yes no oxfords but in shape very close to C&J Hallam to give you an idea. Not very clear in these pictures IMO. Here is a close up picture posted previously : http://www.styleforum.net/gallery/image/view/id/357521/album/129477

I will wear the same coat and waistcoat at Royal Ascot (changing the rest) and will try to take pictures with a proper camera to show the waist line of the coat, in fact IMO even clear with the unbuttoned coat, better then seen in many pictures of other example.

Other things may be wrong with the following pictures, but in terms of various buff tone in linen (texture element):

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41791000/jpg/_41791076_princecharles220.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DR5u13jEh...k/bxiJqd1JopI/s1600/Edward_Sophie_Wedding.jpg

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Princess+Eugenie+Jake+Warren+Royal+Ascot+2009+9XV0H4W1-05l.jpg

marcodalondra said:

Fair enough and thanks for the feedback; as you say it is difficult to judge from these pictures the fit, in fact in my eyes do not reflect at all as I saw myself in the mirror. However, buff linen it is very appropriate and traditional, so we have agree to disagree. This particular colour is the same I have in the H Lesser Formal Swatch book. In terms of style, I would have liked one with lapels but could not find one done well RTW. There were people yesterday wearing double breasted waistcoat that were showing about 10cm of shirt between the bottom of the waistcoat and the top of the trouser, often worn without suspenders and with belt loops. Shoes were Jeffrey West Captoe Derby, yes no oxfords but in shape very close to C&J Hallam to give you an idea. Not very clear in these pictures IMO. Here is a close up picture posted previously : http://www.styleforum.net/gallery/image/view/id/357521/album/129477
I will wear the same coat and waistcoat at Royal Ascot (changing the rest) and will try to take pictures with a proper camera to show the waist line of the coat, in fact IMO even clear with the unbuttoned coat, better then seen in many pictures of other example.

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Those in glass houses should not throw stones.....

The point of this post was to report the general state of morning dress at an event/location where it is still required for the general public. I am not saying my effort was perfect, it can be certainly be improved further and it will be in the coming years with further investments but I still was one of the better dressed in terms of adhering to the traditional rules. A grey waistcoat with a black coat would have looked in my eye too close to what I would have worn to my wedding. Buff or light blue would have been my choice for the races in any case.

Epsom is very much a mixed bag when it comes to dressing up; it's more of a festive atmosphere than formal even in the Queen's Stand. I grew up in the town and in those days, it was run on Wednesdays and we used to get the afternoon off school, ostensibly to avoid the traffic but really so everyone could go to the races and have a flutter!

To be honest, I always preferred the various informal areas to the assorted stands anyway, esp. the areas where you can park your car on the course with friends and picnic out the back...

Well I'm inclined to agree with you generally. However, the various elements of your ensemble do not work well together.

Frankie22 said:

Those in glass houses should not throw stones.....

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Indeed.

King Ted/Sherman look, not a fan of it myself as it tends to be bit baggy. Maybe the problem is that some people hire suits for the occasion, so what they wear i.e. shape, cut and colours are dictated somewhat and are unlikely to be made to measure.



marcodalondra said:

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Has no one told you that a morning coat should reach the back of the knees at the very least?

The waistcoat on the other hand looks fine, and the trousers are good, apart from the over-creasing.



Blackhood said:

Has no one told you that a morning coat should reach the back of the knees at the very least?
The waistcoat on the other hand looks fine, and the trousers are good, apart from the over-creasing.

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Thanks Blackhood, I am aware of that recommendation. In fact the end of the tails at the back is about 3cm higher then the crease line at the back of my knee and was tempted to take a picture without trousers to prove it but it would have been a bit weird ;-).
As I said it the coat is RTW and I had to make a choice between an over all good fit or going a size up and have many alterations done. As I was a bit worried of getting good alteration done to a now uncommon morning coat pattern, I decided to go for this. Again the picture is a bit deceiving as the back end is lower than the front view would suggest, nevertheless if and when I would get a bespoke morning coat, the tail end will be 3 cm lower then this one.

I think that to better illustrate this thread I should have taken some pictures of other people as well as mine..

Some pictures I quickly found on the web that remind me of what I have seen there:

http://www.next.co.uk/x493638s3
http://www.next.co.uk/x493638s2

https://www.formaltailor.co.uk/products/mens-green-scroll-waistcoat-cravat-and-shirt

http://m.marksandspencer.com/mt/www...&pf_rd_i=0&pf_rd_p=215485807&pf_rd_s=center-3

Those cravat & waistcoat combinations are so foul that they make me angry, and I'm a very docile gentleman.

Do you have any shots of well-dressed chaps at the Derby, by any chance? I feel that SF users would find that much more interesting; I certainly would.

Unfortunately I only took these two pictures, but in future I would take more pictures and of others if I am thinking to make a post on this forum. In fact I only took those pictures after the last race before leaving when I thought of reporting what I saw.