These excerpts are taken from letters written by Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to his son. Originally collected and published in 1774, ‘Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman’ was a widely read etiquette manual and precursor of today’s self-help genre.

Bath, October 12, 1748

GOOD COMPANY (AS I have before observed) is composed of a great variety of fashionable people, whose characters and morals are very different, though their manners are pretty much the same. When a young man, new in the world, first gets into that company, he very rightly determines to conform to, and imitate it. But then he too often, and fatally, mistakes the objects of his imitation. He has often heard that absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices. He there sees some people who shine, and who in general are admired and esteemed; and observes that these people are whoremasters, drunkards, or gamesters, upon which he adopts their vices, mistaking their defects for their perfections, and thinking that they owe their fashions and their luster to those genteel vices.

… Imitate then, with discernment and judgment, the real perfections of the good company into which you may get; copy their politeness, their carriage, their address, and the easy and well-bred turn of their conversation; but remember that, let them shine ever so bright, their vices, if they have any, are so many spots which you would no more imitate, than you would make an artificial wart upon your face, because some very handsome man had the misfortune to have a natural one upon his: but, on the contrary, think how much handsomer he would have been without it.

London, December 30, 1748

Your dress (as insignificant a thing as dress is in itself) is now become an object worthy of some attention; for, I confess, I cannot help forming some opinion of a man’s sense and character from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding. Most of our young fellows here display some character or other by their dress; some affect the tremendous, and wear a great and fiercely cocked hat, an enormous sword, a short waistcoat and a black cravat; these I should be almost tempted to swear the peace against, in my own defense, if I were not convinced that they are but meek asses in lions’ skins. Others go in brown frocks, leather breeches, great oaken cudgels in their hands, their hats uncocked, and their hair unpowdered; and imitate grooms, stage-coachmen, and country bumpkins so well in their outsides, that I do not make the least doubt of their resembling them equally in their insides. A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for other people’s. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people of sense and fashion of the place where he is. If he dresses better, as he thinks, that is, more than they, he is a fop; if he dresses worse, he is unpardonably negligent. But, of the two, I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine, where others are fine; and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made, and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. When you are once well dressed for the day think no more of it afterward; and, without any stiffness for fear of discomposing that dress, let all your motions be as easy and natural as if you had no clothes on at all. So much for dress, which I maintain to be a thing of consequence in the polite world.

London, September 22, 1749

I am very glad that you have received the diamond buckles safe; all I desire in return for them is, that they may be buckled even upon your feet, and that your stockings may not hide them. I should be sorry that you were an egregious fop; but, I protest, that of the two, I would rather have you a fop than a sloven. I think negligence in my own dress, even at my age, when certainly I expect no advantages from my dress, would be indecent with regard to others. I have done with fine clothes; but I will have my plain clothes fit me, and made like other people’s: In the evenings, I recommend to you the company of women of fashion, who have a right to attention and will be paid it. Their company will smooth your manners, and give you a habit of attention and respect, of which you will find the advantage among men.

London, January 25, 1750

In every language, pray attend carefully to the choice of your words, and to the turn of your expression. Indeed, it is a point of very great consequence. To be heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure: words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt, than your person should. By the way, do you mind your person and your dress sufficiently? Do you take great care of your teeth? Pray have them put in order by the best operator at Rome. Are you belaced, bepowdered, and befeathered, as other young fellows are, and should be?

Greenwich, July 8, 1751

To neglect your dress, is an affront to all the women you keep company with; as it implies that you do not think them worth that attention which everybody else doth; they mind dress, and you will never please them if you neglect yours; and if you do not please the women, you will not please half the men you otherwise might. It is the women who put a young fellow in fashion even with the men. A young fellow ought to have a certain fund of coquetry; which should make him try all the means of pleasing, as much as any coquette in Europe can do…
I cannot conclude this letter without returning again to the showish, the ornamental, the shining parts of your character; which, if you neglect, upon my word you will render the solid ones absolutely useless; nay, such is the present turn of the world, that some valuable qualities are even ridiculous, if not accompanied by the genteeler accomplishments. Plainness, simplicity, and quakerism, either in dress or manners, will by no means do; they must both be laced and embroidered; speaking, or writing sense, without elegance and turn, will be very little persuasive; and the best figure in the world, without air and address, will be very ineffectual. Some pedants may have told you that sound sense and learning stand in, need of no ornaments; and, to support that assertion, elegantly quote the vulgar proverb, that GOOD WINE NEEDS NO BUSH; but surely the little experience you have already had of the world must have convinced you that the contrary of that assertion is true. All those accomplishments are now in your power; think of them, and of them only.

London, November 20, 1753

Whether, where you are now, or ever may be hereafter, you speak French, German, or English most, I earnestly recommend to you a particular attention to the propriety and elegance of your style; employ the best words you can find in the language, avoid cacophony, and make your periods as harmonious as you can. I need not, I am sure, tell you what you must often have felt, how much the elegance of diction adorns the best thoughts, and palliates the worst.
I repeat it to you again, for at least the thousandth time, exert your whole attention now in acquiring the ornamental parts of character. People know very little of the world, and talk nonsense, when they talk of plainness and solidity unadorned: they will do in nothing; mankind has been long out of a state of nature, and the golden age of native simplicity will never return. Whether for the better or the worse, no matter; but we are refined; and plain manners, plain dress, and plain diction, would as little do in life, as acorns, herbage, and the water of the neighbouring spring, would do at table. Some people are just come, who interrupt me in the middle of my sermon; so good-night.

Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, lived from 1694 to 1773.

The seventh issue of Vestoj, ‘On Masculinities,’ will be in stores this month. In introduction, Vestoj Online is publishing a series of articles on the theme.

THE ZOOT SUIT WAS an icon of its time, born from the bespoke draped silhouettes of London’s Savile Row in the mid-1930s then adopted and exaggerated by young jazz-obsessed men and women across America. Amid a period of social and political turbulence just before World War II, the style was not only a means of dandyism, but also a badge of cultural identity for many African American and first-generation immigrant youths. Its exaggerated shape and distinctive details are familiar to many by way of classic images of performers Cab Calloway, Tin Tan and other jazz greats, as well as from the numerous tributes that have since been made to the zoot suit and its original wearers, such as Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit from 1978 and popular songs from L. Wolfe Gilbert and Bob O’Brien’s 1942, ‘Zoot suit for my Sunday Gal,’ to Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ 1997 big band revival hit, ‘Zoot Suit Riot.’

Beyond our pop cultural knowledge of the zoot suit are numerous scholarly articles on the subject. Strong social, political, cultural and dress research have enumerated the significance of the zoot suit against its cultural backdrop of racial tensions during the interwar years. And indeed, the so-called ‘zoot suit riots’ of 1943 were a cultural obsession that headlined newspapers across the country, and masked what was essentially race warfare between whites and Chicanos and blacks with the military dress of servicemen and unpatriotic dress of zoot-suiters.

Yet for all of this breadth and depth of information and various descriptions of this extraordinary suit style, research on an existing example is scarce because so few have survived. Reasons for this vary. As zoot suits required much more fabric to create than a typical suit, its rarity may be partly due to WWII-era restrictions imposed by the War Production Board in March of 1942 to reduce the amount of fabric used in garment construction, effectively limiting the production. Examples of the voluminous zoot suit may have also been remade into other garments, or the suits simply may not have survived use, whether from day-to-day wear or nighttime dances of the fashionable jitterbug or Lindy Hop. Further, during the zoot suit riots that first began in Los Angeles before spreading to other urban areas of the country, servicemen actively sought out Chicano and black zoot-suiters, sometimes even using ‘zootbeaters’ – a wooden two-by-four with nails – to physically tear the suits off of the zooter in a deplorable act of public humiliation.   

Despite the turbulent past of this garment, remarkably, one extant zoot suit survives in the permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. LACMA’s zoot suit is not only one of the only known suits of its kind held within a museum collection, but it is an extreme example of an already overstated style at that. The jacket of the zoot suit has a strong, overtly broad shoulder line, a fitted waist, a long jacket hem that falls below the fingertips and wide, pegged sleeves. To further exaggerate its fullness, the sleeves of this rare multi-striped suit are inset with gores in a contrasting striped fabric. The bag pockets of the jacket only attach at the top flap, allowing them to fly out from the body when the wearer spun. The matching pegged trousers are worn high on the waist and closed with a seventeen-inch zipper fly. For maximum fullness at the knee, the waist of the trousers is deeply pleated; this example has a two and a half-inch knife pleat at both sides of the center front which allows for the pant leg to billow out into a forty-seven-inch circumference knee before it tapers in with curved darts into a narrow cuff, measuring a mere seventeen and a half inches.

Other construction details, such as the quality of the wool fabric, the stitch length at the seams and how details such as the collar and armscyes are tailored, suggest that the suit was made by a seasoned professional tailor. However, the textile is not of the finest quality and the sartorial hand was not typical of high-end suits. For a young man who wanted to don the uniform of hipsters or hepcats, but could not afford a costly bespoke model, this example – made to the tall size of its original owner – may have been semi-custom made, a common method of purchasing zoot suits. In this process, a retailer took the customer’s measurements and sent them to a wholesale manufacturer that constructed the suit to specification. Although these semi-custom suits were more affordable than custom tailoring, the cost was still expensive for most working-class youths who often purchased a suit on credit.¹ The sheer extravagance in the draped shape of this suit suggests that it may have not only been semi-custom made, but also worn for performance, as the wearer would have generated such movement and presence in the pegged ensemble.  

Through thorough analysis of materials in the suit, the suit is likely authentic to this turbulent early 1940s period.² The presence of lead in some of the original trouser buttons suggests that they pre-date recent times. Though buttons could be removed and replaced, the use of both belt loops and suspender buttons in the construction of the trousers supports this date, as men were still transitioning from suspenders to belts to hold up their trousers; it was typical in the 1940s to have both options available. Also, the rayon lining of the jacket ends half-way up the interior top back with exposed seams finished and bound with fabric bias tape, tailoring details typical of men’s suits of the 1930s and 40s.

Upon examination, there is also physical evidence throughout the suit that it was worn and likely danced in. Aside from remnant tobacco found in the pockets when it first arrived, or slight signs of wear throughout, such as loose threads and warping, there are patches at the back cuff of the right pant leg from considerable wear. In the jitterbug, it is common to actively kick your dominant leg – the force of spinning into a kick may have caused the bottom cuff of the pant leg to slip past the ankle and catch on the heel of the shoe. If this is the source for this wear, we might conclude that our original zoot-suiter was right handed. Incidentally, the aforementioned tobacco was also found in the right jacket pocket.

The piece itself was originally found by a collector and jazz enthusiast who discovered the suit in an estate sale of a house that he described as a ‘time capsule’ in Montclair, New Jersey, just twenty minutes by car outside of Harlem, likely where the suit was worn. Harlem was the home of the Savoy Ballroom, a public dance space considered ‘The Heartbeat of Harlem’ by poet Langston Hughes. The venue played jazz music and – unlike the Cotton Club – it always had a no-discrimination policy. Thus, the general styling of accessories for the zoot suit for display was based on research done from photographs of young men and jazz musicians primarily from the New York area.

The deep-seated meaning of this exaggerated style to those who wore them from Harlem to Los Angeles was of self-assertion. Not only did zoot-suiters form a community around this suit, but the pleasure of assuming this bold draped look spoke to young African American and first-generation American men who were systematically underprivileged. But for many white Americans, the zoot suit was symbolic of gang activity or subversion, especially as racial tensions continued to rise, particularly in southern California against Mexican-American pachucos. In 1942, the Los Angeles press began to report on the Sleepy Lagoon Trial against a Chicano zoot-suiter accused for the murder of another Chicano youth; the negative press fostered intense prejudice towards the Mexican-American community. Accounts of pachuco gangs assaulting visiting white servicemen stationed in Los Angeles for deployment overseas abounded, as were rumours of these servicemen seeking out young Chicano women for sexual pleasure.

In June 1943, fights broke out between pachuco zoot-suiters and navy service men, with hundreds of Chicano and African-American youths beaten and arrested. Some accounts even described ‘prowl cars’ which cruised through Mexican neighbourhoods to intimidate the community. Some press sensationalised these ‘zoot suit riots’ with articles entitled ‘Zoot-Suit War,’ and ‘Zoot-Suiters Learn Lesson in Fight with Servicemen.’ The race-related zoot suit riots spread to other cities, such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond and Harlem. In June 11, 1943, The Nation voiced dissent towards the press’ unbalanced reporting of the riots in an article under the headline, ‘Hearst Press Incited Campaign Against Mexicans, Promoted Police Raids, Whipped Up Race Clashes.’ In the article, the columnist called out the press for its ‘great smear campaign against Mexicans.’³ This historically left-leaning periodical continues with the bold observation, laden with suggestive comparisons with the war overseas, that, ‘There is a deadly parallel between the pictures of naked Mexican boys lying on the streets of Los Angeles in pools of blood – with grinning mobs standing around – and the pictures one began to see a few years ago of Jews being made to clean the streets of Vienna.’⁴ 

As difficult as this period was for pachuco young men, it was similarly challenging for their female counterparts, the pachucas. Like the pachucos, pachucas also received negative press amid the riots, with various reports of these young Chicano women battling servicemen amid the riots alongside their brothers, boyfriends, or friends, or attacking white women with knives that were allegedly hidden in their hair. These so-called ‘zoot suit gangsterettes,’ ‘cholitas,’ or ‘zooterinas’ were also said to be part of gangs called the ‘Slick Chicks’ or ‘Black Widows.’

Their look was similar to zoot-suiters, and generally consisted of a broad-shouldered ‘finger-tip’ coat, a short knee-length skirt or pegged trousers, fishnet stockings or bobby socks, platform heels, saddle shoes, or huarache sandals, high pompadour hairstyles, and heavy make-up. Latino/a historian Elizabeth R. Escobedo notes that strong lipstick and eye make-up was a means for these young women to actively embellish the Mexicanness of their face.⁵ In some cases, pachucas assumed this look as an act of rebellion. As first-generation Mexican-Americans, they were redefining their place in society – not only as ethnic minorities, but also as women from a cultural heritage strongly dominated by traditional Catholic values. Assuming a more masculine look with the zoot suit allowed these young women to rebel against what was expected as a Mexican female, while also being a means of community for other like-minded Mexican-American women.

Like any curious young adult, some pachucas were confrontational and sexually provocative as reported in both English- and Spanish-language press; however, other pachucas donned the zoot style simply because they wanted to be fashionable and visually affiliated with the latest youth trends. According to oral histories of Chicano women who grew up in southern California in the 1940s conducted by Catherine S. Ramirez, some wearers of the style did not even self-identify as a pachucas.⁶ As the zoot suit grew to be more of a fashion fad, even white females – like white males – began to don the style. In fact, when zoot suits were depicted on white men and women, the emphasis of the style was more on youth, music and dance rather than gang violence. In 1942, the St. Louis Post Dispatch described wearers of the style as ‘usually excellent dancers, perfect gentlemen,’ and that their female counterparts call their zoot look ‘a “juke jacket,” because it’s worn when dancing to the juke box.’⁷ It is worth noting that all zoot-suiters photographed in this article were Caucasian.

This clear double standard of the race of the zoot-suiter was so notable to many in the Mexican-American community – both parents and young women alike – that they actively discouraged the style, especially on women. Some in the Mexican community even feared the pachucas. Over time, the concern grew that all young Chicano women would be generalised as delinquent and gang-affiliated. In an effort to prove false assumptions of their sexual promiscuity in particular, a group of thirty Mexican-American women from various neighbourhoods in Los Angeles came forward and offered to undergo medical examinations to prove their chastity. ⁸ Though self-identified as ‘zooters’ they wanted to demonstrate that their style of dress and sexual actions did not go hand-in-hand. Fortunately, leaders of the Mexican community deemed such extreme measures to be excessive and instead asked that they donate blood to the Red Cross. The Los Angeles-based Eastside Journal, published an article highlighting another group of Mexican-American girls, all of whom graduated with top honours and with brothers or boyfriends in the armed forces.⁹ None were pictured wearing a zoot suit, but this was clearly a way to use the press, which had vilified zoot-suiters, to counteract the hysteria around pachucas.

Although the zoot suit fell out of fashion for both men and women by the end of World War II, underlying social issues of race would continue to evolve. Despite being a short-lived fad, this draped shape is an icon of its time and considered the first truly American suit. It was an exaggeration of the ultimate male uniform, the suit, and in its heyday the zoot suit was adopted widely in various communities throughout the country. During its reign in fashion, it not only granted its wearers, both male and female, a sense of strength and bravado, it also put a spotlight on the true diversity of American citizenry.

Clarissa M. Esguerra is Associate Curator of the Costume and Textiles department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her curatorial contributions include ‘Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail 1700-1915’ and, most recently, ‘Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear 1715-2015,’ where an early 1940s zoot suit was a prominent feature.

1. K Peiss. Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2011, p. 25. ↩

2. This analysis was carried out by LACMA textile conservator Laleña Vellanoweth and conservation scientist, Charlotte Eng. ↩

3. C McWilliams, ‘The Story Behind the Zoot War:’ Hearst Press Incited Campaign Against Mexicans, Promoted Police Raides, Whipped Up Race Clashes,’ The Nation, June 11, 1943, p.3.  ↩

4. Ibid., p. 4. ↩

5. E R Escobedo, ‘The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles,’ Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2, Summer, 2007, p.140. ↩

6. See C S Ramirez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2009 ↩

7. “The Government Frowns on the ‘Zoot Suit,’” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 27, 1942, p. 9. ↩

8. E R Escobedo, ‘The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles,’ Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2, Summer, 2007, p.142. ↩

9. C S Ramirez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2009, p. 44. ↩

MR. TOWERS CHANDLER WAS pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom. One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be seen later on extending in straight lines from Mr. Chandler’s patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero’s toilet may be intrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome – in appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.

Chandler’s honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed – though he would not have dared to admit it in New York – that the Flatiron Building was inferior in design to the great cathedral in Milan.

Out of each week’s earnings Chandler set aside $1. At the end of each ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated, he purchased one gentleman’s evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time. He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a well-considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label, commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the ordinary etceteras.

This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one début; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened; but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had been. To sit among bon vivants under palms in the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the habitués of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them – what is a girl’s first dance and short-sleeved tulle compared with this?

Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade. For this evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious table d’hôtes, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his hall-bedroom. He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the great city of razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight made up for many dark ones.

Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties began to intersect the great and glittering primrose way, for the evening was yet young, and when one is of the beau monde only one day in seventy, one loves to protract the pleasure. Eyes bright, sinister, curious, admiring, provocative, alluring were bent upon him, for his garb and air proclaimed him a devotee to the hour of solace and pleasure.

At a certain corner he came to a standstill, proposing to himself the question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. Just then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell plump upon the sidewalk.

Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and solicitous courtesy. The girl hobbled to the wall of the building, leaned against it, and thanked him demurely.

‘I think my ankle is strained,’ she said. ‘It twisted when I fell.’

‘Does it pain you much?’ inquired Chandler.

‘Only when I rest my weight upon it. I think I will be able to walk in a minute or two.’

‘If I can be of any further service,’ suggested the young man, ‘I will call a cab, or – ‘

‘Thank you,’ said the girl, softly but heartily. ‘I am sure you need not trouble yourself any further. It was so awkward of me. And my shoe heels are horridly common-sense; I can’t blame them at all.’

Chandler looked at the girl and found her swiftly drawing his interest. She was pretty in a refined way; and her eye was both merry and kind. She was inexpensively clothed in a plain black dress that suggested a sort of uniform such as shop girls wear. Her glossy dark-brown hair showed its coils beneath a cheap hat of black straw whose only ornament was a velvet ribbon and bow. She could have posed as a model for the self-respecting working girl of the best type.

A sudden idea came into the head of the young architect. He would ask this girl to dine with him. Here was the element that his splendid but solitary periodic feasts had lacked. His brief season of elegant luxury would be doubly enjoyable if he could add to it a lady’s society. This girl was a lady, he was sure – her manner and speech settled that. And in spite of her extremely plain attire he felt that he would be pleased to sit at table with her.

These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind, and he decided to ask her. It was a breach of etiquette, of course, but oftentimes wage-earning girls waived formalities in matters of this kind. They were generally shrewd judges of men; and thought better of their own judgment than they did of useless conventions. His ten dollars, discreetly expended, would enable the two to dine very well indeed. The dinner would no doubt be a wonderful experience thrown into the dull routine of the girl’s life; and her lively appreciation of it would add to his own triumph and pleasure.

‘I think,’ he said to her, with frank gravity,’that your foot needs a longer rest than you suppose. Now, I am going to suggest a way in which you can give it that and at the same time do me a favour. I was on my way to dine all by my lonely self when you came tumbling around the corner. You come with me and we’ll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am sure.’

The girl looked quickly up into Chandler’s clear, pleasant countenance. Her eyes twinkled once very brightly, and then she smiled ingenuously.

‘But we don’t know each other – it wouldn’t be right, would it?’ she said, doubtfully.

‘There is nothing wrong about it,’ said the young man, candidly. ‘I’ll introduce myself – permit me – Mr. Towers Chandler. After our dinner, which I will try to make as pleasant as possible, I will bid you good-evening, or attend you safely to your door, whichever you prefer.’

‘But, dear me!’ said the girl, with a glance at Chandler’s faultless attire. ‘In this old dress and hat!’

‘Never mind that,’ said Chandler, cheerfully. ‘I’m sure you look more charming in them than any one we shall see in the most elaborate dinner toilette.’

‘My ankle does hurt yet,’ admitted the girl, attempting a limping step.’I think I will accept your invitation, Mr. Chandler. You may call me – Miss Marian.’

‘Come then, Miss Marian,’ said the young architect, gaily, but with perfect courtesy; ‘you will not have far to walk. There is a very respectable and good restaurant in the next block. You will have to lean on my arm – so – and walk slowly. It is lonely dining all by one’s self. I’m just a little bit glad that you slipped on the ice.’

When the two were established at a well-appointed table, with a promising waiter hovering in attendance, Chandler began to experience the real joy that his regular outing always brought to him.

The restaurant was not so showy or pretentious as the one further down Broadway, which he always preferred, but it was nearly so. The tables were well filled with prosperous-looking diners, there was a good orchestra, playing softly enough to make conversation a possible pleasure, and the cuisine and service were beyond criticism. His companion, even in her cheap hat and dress, held herself with an air that added distinction to the natural beauty of her face and figure. And it is certain that she looked at Chandler, with his animated but self-possessed manner and his kindling and frank blue eyes, with something not far from admiration in her own charming face.

Then it was that the Madness of Manhattan, the frenzy of Fuss and Feathers, the Bacillus of Brag, the Provincial Plague of Pose seized upon Towers Chandler. He was on Broadway, surrounded by pomp and style, and there were eyes to look at him. On the stage of that comedy he had assumed to play the one-night part of a butterfly of fashion and an idler of means and taste. He was dressed for the part, and all his good angels had not the power to prevent him from acting it.

So he began to prate to Miss Marian of clubs, of teas, of golf and riding and kennels and cotillions and tours abroad and threw out hints of a yacht lying at Larchmont. He could see that she was vastly impressed by this vague talk, so he endorsed his pose by random insinuations concerning great wealth, and mentioned familiarly a few names that are handled reverently by the proletariat. It was Chandler’s short little day, and he was wringing from it the best that could be had, as he saw it. And yet once or twice he saw the pure gold of this girl shine through the mist that his egotism had raised between him and all objects.

‘This way of living that you speak of,’ she said, ‘sounds so futile and purposeless. Haven’t you any work to do in the world that might interest you more?’

‘My dear Miss Marian,’ he exclaimed – ‘work! Think of dressing every day for dinner, of making half a dozen calls in an afternoon – with a policeman at every corner ready to jump into your auto and take you to the station, if you get up any greater speed than a donkey cart’s gait. We do-nothings are the hardest workers in the land.’

The dinner was concluded, the waiter generously fed, and the two walked out to the corner where they had met. Miss Marian walked very well now; her limp was scarcely noticeable.

‘Thank you for a nice time,’ she said, frankly. ‘I must run home now. I liked the dinner very much, Mr. Chandler.’

He shook hands with her, smiling cordially, and said something about a game of bridge at his club. He watched her for a moment, walking rather rapidly eastward, and then he found a cab to drive him slowly homeward.

In his chilly bedroom Chandler laid away his evening clothes for a sixty-nine days’ rest. He went about it thoughtfully.

‘That was a stunning girl,’ he said to himself. ‘She’s all right, too, I’d be sworn, even if she does have to work. Perhaps if I’d told her the truth instead of all that razzle-dazzle we might – but, confound it! I had to play up to my clothes.’

Thus spoke the brave who was born and reared in the wigwams of the tribe of the Manhattans.

The girl, after leaving her entertainer, sped swiftly cross-town until she arrived at a handsome and sedate mansion two squares to the east, facing on that avenue which is the highway of Mammon and the auxiliary gods. Here she entered hurriedly and ascended to a room where a handsome young lady in an elaborate house dress was looking anxiously out the window.

‘Oh, you madcap!’ exclaimed the elder girl, when the other entered. ‘When will you quit frightening us this way? It is two hours since you ran out in that rag of an old dress and Marie’s hat. Mamma has been so alarmed. She sent Louis in the auto to try to find you. You are a bad, thoughtless Puss.’

The elder girl touched a button, and a maid came in a moment.

‘Marie, tell mamma that Miss Marian has returned.’

‘Don’t scold, sister. I only ran down to Mme. Theo’s to tell her to use mauve insertion instead of pink. My costume and Marie’s hat were just what I needed. Every one thought I was a shopgirl, I am sure.’

‘Dinner is over, dear; you stayed so late.’

‘I know. I slipped on the sidewalk and turned my ankle. I could not walk, so I hobbled into a restaurant and sat there until I was better. That is why I was so long.’

The two girls sat in the window seat, looking out at the lights and the stream of hurrying vehicles in the avenue. The younger one cuddled down with her head in her sister’s lap.

‘We will have to marry some day,’ she said dreamily – ‘both of us. We have so much money that we will not be allowed to disappoint the public. Do you want me to tell you the kind of a man I could love, Sis?’

‘Go on, you scatterbrain,’ smiled the other.

‘I could love a man with dark and kind blue eyes, who is gentle and respectful to poor girls, who is handsome and good and does not try to flirt. But I could love him only if he had an ambition, an object, some work to do in the world. I would not care how poor he was if I could help him build his way up. But, sister dear, the kind of man we always meet – the man who lives an idle life between society and his clubs – I could not love a man like that, even if his eyes were blue and he were ever so kind to poor girls whom he met in the street.’

This story was originally published in The Four Million, a collection of short stories by O. Henry, in 1906.

Images courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org).

In his quick-witted prose and commentary, Wilde quotes still ring true today, capturing the duplicity at the essence of fashion by summing up a sentiment in such a way that if you blink you might miss the power of his words: ‘And after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.’ This holds as much relevance now as it did when it was written, in distinguishing the line between what is ‘fashion,’ and what is ‘fashionable’. A centrepiece to his writings on dress is the essay ‘The Philosophy Of Dress’, first published in 1885 in The New York Tribune, but over the years Wilde’s own clothes and dress have garnered much notoriety and mythology through his association with dandyism and bohemia.

***

Excerpt by Merlin Holland from Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion, 2013: 

Oscar Wilde’s last shirt owes its survival to being in the wash when he died in Paris on November 30, 1900. Had it not been, his close friend and literary executor, Robert Ross, would almost certainly have disposed of it, as he did Oscar’s other personal possessions of no monetary or sentimental value. It survived thanks to the Dupoirier family, who owned the Hôtel d’Alsace, where Wilde was a long-term resident. A few items that had belonged to Oscar surfaced later, and Jean Dupoirier kept them as mementos. There were the shirt, two trunks of books and magazines, a pile of rough jottings that Dupoirier burned, an umbrella that he subsequently lost, and finally, a set of false teeth.

When the French commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Wilde’s death, the organizing committee invited my father, Vyvyan, to be present. He, who had a horror of such events, saying they made him feel like a performing monkey, refused and sent my mother in his place. At the Hôtel d’Alsace, she met Dupoirier’s daughter, who offered her both the shirt and the dentures; my mother accepted the shirt but turned down the teeth as being too gruesome. Had it been my father, I know he would have taken neither, so the shirt has survived quite against the odds. Of the dentures there is (perhaps fortunately) no trace.

The shirt, with attached wing collar, waffle piqué front, and single cuffs, appears to have been an evening dress shirt. It is embroidered on the left breast with the initials “S.M.,” which stood for Sebastian Melmoth, Wilde’s pseudonym in exile, and with the date it was made, 1899, under the buttonholed tab designed to fasten the shirt to the trousers and prevent it “riding up.” It would have been worn with a collar stud and cuff links, although such luxury, implying a suit to go with it, seems incongruous with Oscar’s finances at the time. On the other hand, despite his enforced bohemian lifestyle, he still craved the company of those who stimulated him, who cared nothing for his disgrace and occasionally invited him to dinner, for which a tenue de soirée would have been the norm.

Oscar loved clothes, certainly, but they weren’t his raison d’être, and he was hardly a “dandy” in the accepted sense of the word. He dressed like a long-haired aesthete when he came to lecture in America in 1882; cut his hair and dressed like a smart man about town when he married; and when he came out of prison, dressed as well as he could afford to, sometimes thanks to the generosity of his friends. When in 1898 Ross sent him a new suit from the West End tailor James Doré, Oscar wrote with humor as well as gratitude: “The clothes are quite charming−suitable to my advanced age. The trousers are too tight round the waist. That is the result of my rarely having good dinners: nothing fattens so much as a dinner at 1 fr. 50.” All the more reason to keep a set of dress clothes handy for those occasions when you were invited to eat well. 

Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion was published by Yale University Press in 2013.