Do you agree with Brummel?

[kshah]

Unfortunately, society has lowered its standards. Brummell wouldn't be proud.

 

[acidboy]

In a sea of "deconstructed" shirts, torn jeans and flipflops even the man in the most low key but well-fitted suit will attract attention nowadays. I think what Mr. Brummel said is not absolute.

 

[william]

As a man who influenced the manner of dress of an entire city and later the world, I dare say more people turned around to look at Beau Brummell than any other man in history. To me the comment has always meant to avoid flamboyant dress.

Maybe it would read better if the word "look" was replaced with "gawk".

 

[Nantucket Red]

Brummel never saw a rock star.

 

[LabelKing]

Or Wilde, Dali, Tynan, Baudelaire, Beaton, et al.

 

[Jared]

Originally Posted by acidicboy

In a sea of "deconstructed" shirts, torn jeans and flipflops even the man in the most low key but well-fitted suit will attract attention nowadays. I think what Mr. Brummel said is not absolute.
No: if nothing else we must take Brummel's statement as timeless. As much as we hate to admit it, there are plenty of occasions for which a suit is overdressed. Street social behaviour was completely different in Brummel's time. It's hard to know exactly what "turns round to look" means in modern terms?

 

[mr monty]

Originally Posted by Dragon

These days, the last thing you want to do is dress like everyone else. Of course, if you are truly nicely dressed, heads are going to turn in this day and age.

+1 shined shoes and neatly pressed clothing will turn heads in today's world

 

[Nantucket Red]

People who dress abominably turn heads too.

 

[Cantabrigian]

Manton,

Maybe this was your point and I wasn't bright enough to catch it but do you think Brummel would have made that statement today or was he simply or mainly reacting to the peacocks around him at that time?

Or, as others have hinted at, do you think it was with a bit of false modesty that he said that, considering the fact that he is (and I imagine was then) famous for his clothes?

Originally Posted by Manton

It may help a bit to put Brummell's remarks in context. Two basic points:

1) His times followed a rather flamboyant period of dress, particularly among the aristocracy. Indeed, George IV when not under Brummell's influence, tended to overdress rather outrageously. Brummell was a great simplifier of men's clothing. So in part, I think, the remark is meant to stigmatize the kinds of clothing that he repudiated and helped to make obsolete.

2) Brummell was slavishly immitated in his time. Like all originals that get copied, his original was subject to abuse by copiers who didn't quite "get" it. Brummell believed that many of his acolytes went too far and ended up cartoonish. I think in part the remark was meant to refer to them.

"Turns round to look at you" is an interesting way to put it. Most of us would, I assume, admit that we occasionally turn round to look at beautiful women. How many of us actually turn around to look at well dressed men? I would say, for me, almost never, if ever. That's not to say that I don't notice one when I see one on the street, however.

 

[Manton]

I believe the key to understanding what Brummell meant is the reference to "John Bull." Remember, he does not say that if anyone turns round to look at you, you are not well dressed; he says that if "John Bull" turns round to look at you, you are not well dressed.

John Bull, as noted, was a representation of the English everyman. The American equivalent, to the extent that there is one, might be "Joe Sixpack." Except that does not really get to the heart of it, because John Bull was also meant to embody various national characteristics of the English people; he was a symbol of the nation. So maybe he was a cross between Joe Sixpack and Uncle Sam.

In any event, we can say with confidence what he was not: he was not sophisticated, not aristocratic, not witty, not particularly well educated, not fashionable, not "smart." He was precisely the sort of person that Brummell avoided and that his smart set disdained.

Brummell's style of dress was all about subtlety. It may no longer look subtle to us, but at the time -- and compared to what it replaced -- it certainly was. Part of the fun of it for Brummell and his set was to distinguish themselves not merely through plainness and subtlety, but through small differences in cut, color and detailing that only they could notice. John Bull, on the other hand, was neither expected nor desired to notice.

Hence Brummell's remark is really a snobbish comment: dress so that "those in the know" notice you, but the hoi polloi don't. John Bull only notices vulgarity. The true dandy notices artful subtlety.

 

[Nantucket Red]

Not that it really matters, but hoi polloi does not take the definite article.

 

[yoyo]

no, peacocking all the way