What is This Gentleman Wearing About his Neck?

Poindexter · Jan 27, 2014

This is a character in the movie of John Le Carre's 'Smiley's People', filmed in about 1980, and I think set sometime between 1960 and then:

Ascot? In shirt material? Something else? I like it.

Thankew,

Poinz

Poindexter · Jan 29, 2014

I can't believe this would stump you guys. Is it just far too stupid a question?

p

archetypal_yuppie · Jan 29, 2014

It is the stupidest question that has ever been asked. Well done.

RyanM · Jan 29, 2014

Scarf.

adagio · Jan 29, 2014

That is a hunting stock.

GBR · Jan 29, 2014

adagio said:
That is a hunting stock.

+1

But he is not wearing hunting pinks oddly.

JLibourel · Jan 29, 2014

^Well, I think you are only supposed to wear pinks when you have attained a certain rank or status with in the hunt. Otherwise I sort of thought that a black coat was most appropriate. Fox hunting is an admirable pursuit but rather far removed from the realm of my personal experience.

FlyingMonkey · Jan 29, 2014

JLibourel said:
Fox hunting is an admirable pursuit

As someone who grew up in rural Britain and who has plenty of experience of 'the hunt', I side with Oscar Wilde here in calling it "the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable." The clothes are interesting but the practice of fox-hunting reflects the worst parts of a nasty, feudal class and land-ownership system that still bedevils Britain today.

Poindexter · Jan 29, 2014

Thank you. Now I can go get one and learn to tie it under my Hampton's Jacket, though I have no idea which end of a horse goes forward.

Aloha,

p

FlyingMonkey · Jan 29, 2014

Poindexter said:
Thank you. Now I can go get one and learn to tie it under my Hampton's Jacket, though I have no idea which end of a horse goes forward.

Well, you're in good company. Although some I'm sure wear exactly what they are 'supposed' to wear for all traditional social situations, I doubt many people here who wear shooting jackets actually shoot, and I am sure that most of those who wear blazers don't belong to any yacht or rowing club (and so on). We're all reappropriating bits of specific style history to our own purposes...

comrade · Jan 30, 2014

adagio said:
That is a hunting stock.

Also favored by First World War British Field Marshall Sir John French:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imperialwarmuseum/6282413701/

Brooks Brothers sold a version back in the 1960s:

http://www.voxsartoria.com/post/34175222265/turnbull-asser-the-clarney-and-brooks-brothers

JLibourel · Jan 30, 2014

FlyingMonkey said:
As someone who grew up in rural Britain and who has plenty of experience of 'the hunt', I side with Oscar Wilde here in calling it "the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable." The clothes are interesting but the practice of fox-hunting reflects the worst parts of a nasty, feudal class and land-ownership system that still bedevils Britain today.

But have you no appreciation for all the pageantry and rich tradition attendant on "hunting" (Anglice)? And what about the foxes? Are they to be merely reduced to the status of rural pests to be shot and poisoned?

I too have had some experience with the British upper class, and, yes, some of them can indeed be nasty. Still, most of them have far more style, panache and social graces than than the riffraff of show business people ("reality stars" being the worst) and sports stars that seem to pass for an upper class here in the USA.

What is This Gentleman Wearing About his Neck?

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