Repeating three colors is easiest when the day's jacket has some pattern. Ivory pin stripes, for example, can be repeated in the dress shirt while a jacket's navy ground may also be the secondary color in the necktie. And that same tie may have a primary color, for example, that is the same as the stripe of the shirt.
Astaire is wearing an odd jacket, and so has considerably more latitude to include color in his ensemble. The ground of the tie is repeated in his square, the dots pick up the jacket and his shirt is the color of his buttonhole. With so much going, on the fact that it all works together is evident only in a general sort of way. He looks good, and that is the objective.
Repeat three colors.
Posts
10 comments:
Great post. Astaire's dress shows that adding color doesn't necessarily make one a dandy. And for those that can't spell "boutonniere", "buttonhole" works just fine.
We mere mortals avoid matching the pocket square to the tie--yet Fred Astaire was able to pull that off.
How could such a scrawny, short, oddly-proportioned guy always look so great? That was (part of) his magic.
We have much to learn from him, even if we do not emulate.
That isn't the prohibited match Horatio. It fortunately lacks the gold dots.
Will, you're at least consistent in your inconsistency. Monochrome beyond the pale? What became of those exhortations to embrace the monochromatic. Great pic of Fred and I enjoy your blog enormously and it's made my question some of my assumption (prejudices?) when it comes to clothes. If I don't get the chance before Saturday, seasons greetings.
Forgive me if I am mistaken, Will, but I think you have advised us to match pocket squares to shirts, or to jackets, or to nothing at all--but not to the tie.
Were you merely speaking against the matching tie-n-square sets (i.e., made of the same material)?
Nowhere is it written that I must be completely consisent Horatio but there are sins and there are sins. The exact match square is a mortal sin. The square with the same ground as the tie is not so much a sin as something you can do better when the ensemble is simple by using an unrelated color.
When there are three colors being coordinated as Astaire has done there is so much going on that the the square with a matching ground does not look studied in my opinion.
Thank you for the clarification!
I love this discussion, and the level of sophistication that is expressed. Astaire was an artist in the area of dress. He had an exquisite and nuanced approach to dressing. He worked with patterns and colors in unusual and sometimes deliberately comical combinations. He definitely had a sense of decorum, but it was balanced with humor, surprise, and even flaunting of the "rules". How many men do you know that would coordinate the color and patterns of their tie, belt,shirt, pocket square, boutonniere, hat band and socks? He had so many patterns and colors going (more than 3 sometimes) but yet it looked perfect together. The combinations were sometimes startling-he even occasionally matched his shoes with his tie! He understood that you are going for a total look and everything has to look like it belongs together. For example, see his outfit in the opening scene of The Band Wagon. He looks totally casual, but there is nothing casual about the details of what he is wearing. For a humorous touch, look at his bow tie in Easter Parade, where he is teaching Garland. The tie matches the fabric on the back of his vest!
This looks like a black-and-white photo that was hand-tinted, and I doubt that the colorist knew exactly which hues Mr. Astaire wore. The color combinations we see may be more a result of artistic license than wardrobe choice.
I am not certain that matters. If the colorist had chosen poor colors I would not have used the photo as an example.
Post a Comment