Originally Posted by wm1965

So we have meandered through the issues of (lounge) suits can we now move on to unsightly no-nos.

Just pop into any RAF Officers' mess and take your pick...

Originally Posted by wm1965

handkerchief not matching the tie or shirt

Personally, I find the matching of one's hadkerchief to one's tie or one's shirt anathema; it looks rather too contrived. In my considered opinion, a pocket handkerchief ought to be white linen, or patterned silk in a colour only tangentially related to the ground colour of one's shirt. The less co-ordinated, the better!

P.S.

The same goes for bowties when worn during the day (obviously a bowtie worn after 6 o'clock in the evening would be black with a dinner jacket, and white with a tailcoat).

Originally Posted by CasinoBoyale

Personally, I find the matching of one's hadkerchief to one's tie or one's shirt anathema; it looks rather too contrived. In my considered opinion, a pocket handkerchief ought to be white linen, or patterned silk in a colour only tangentially related to the ground colour of one's shirt. The less co-ordinated, the better!

P.S.

The same goes for bowties when worn during the day (obviously a bowtie worn after 6 o'clock in the evening would be black with a dinner jacket, and white with a tailcoat).

Indeed. Matching tie and handkerchief is reminiscent of chain store gift sets.

Turning to the things that irritate:

Wing collars, unless detachable, starched and at least 2.25 inches high.
Evening shirts with Marcella front but coloured or patterned back and sleeves.
Shoes fastened with Velcro.
Any item of clothing which features cartoon characters.
Nehru jackets (except worn by Nehru, his countrymen or Ernst Blofeld).
Clip-on braces.

Originally Posted by ViroBono

Shoes fastened with Velcro.
Any item of clothing which features cartoon characters.
Nehru jackets (except worn by Nehru, his countrymen or Ernst Blofeld).
Clip-on braces.

These, along with shirts with pockets and short-sleeves shouldn't even be up for discussion. It's excessively vile.

As for matching handkerchief and tie/shirt I did not mean a "box-set" but the colours (if I didn't state that in the earlier post).

To be honest, I'm still a little sceptical about colour matching. What I meant was one ought to aim for something like that shown in the picture below. You'll notice that the handkerchief does not match the tie (it's green, for a start), but rather complements it.

For the record, the pictur is from the "A suitable wardrobe" blog (A Suitable Wardrobe), and there are many more examples of what I'm talking about. The chap who writes it is an American, but has a lot of good things to say about dressing properly. Well, except for his silly prediliction for double-breasted Dinner Jackets. And "3-roll-2" suit coats. And brown shoes. But otherwise he's pretty good.

Originally Posted by CaptainPlume

Just pop into any RAF Officers' mess and take your pick...

Your banter is trite and poor. It took a Crab to start a dapper clothing thread in here back in 2004.
Pleats can be English or French and makes almost no difference to the shape of the trousers to warrant being 'against' one or the other. As for leather soles on your shoes - it makes far more sense to re-sole with rubber than go through a small fortune re-soling with leather.
There is a lot of 'traditional' snobbery in tailoring and the worst offenders are usually those who are led by dogma rather than what actually suits their body shape (usually corpulent for the real blowhard).

I'm still not sure whether half of the posts in this thread are serious or not.

What a refreshing discussion for a Sunday afternoon!

I agree with the earlier post ref double breasted suits coming back in, perhaps only a matter of time before they became fashionable again once HRH started wearing them.

Another indicator was the re-emergence of paisley ties about a year ago.

All good in my opinion, but the final element must be the re-establishment of ties as an normal form of dress whilst wearing suits. I despise the "business casual" thing, very new labour/ Tony Blairist and makes everyone look like crap.

I look forward to the time when this vulgarian trend is consigned to the dustbin, but I fear we have a generation of young men that have no sense of how to dress properly.

We need to re-establish the instinctive understanding of the difference between style and trend.

I was slightly disappointed by the dress standards in the new Sherlock TV series, but then the wardrobe will have been influenced by the chippy lefties at the BBC - Holmes looks like a cab driver and the Dr Watson character dresses like a lout - the character is supposed to be an ex-infantry MO, but looks simply pathetic, more of an "Oi Oi, alright geezer" type, not an ex-Army Officer.

Detracts for the series in my view.

They should consult us to avoid such wardrobe malfunctions in the third series.

Originally Posted by Taita

I'm still not sure whether half of the posts in this thread are serious or not.

Why - this thread is a discussion, by Officers, on dress standards ....... what could possibly be more serious???

Edited to add - are you RLC, RSigs or RAF??

Originally Posted by wm1965

God good man there're somethings on there that hadn't even crossed my mind! I was thinking more along the lines of things some people do when they should know better. I agree with all of those bar the zip flies, of course.

As it's open-season: a striped tie and shirt combination, handkerchief not matching the tie or shirt, and Italian shoes.

Shouldn't worry about it too much - I seem to recall QM bitching on another thread about some poor quality Samuel Windsor shoes he'd bought. I'd rather have belt loops or zip flies on my trousers than cut about in cheap rancid shoes. The cheapskate.

Cheers mate.......