Clothing in Literature

[claphamomnibus]

Been ploughing through a lot of PG Wodehouse lately and wondered whether anyone had any favourite bits about clothing in books - here are a few of mine from Jeeves and Wooster:

'It is, of course, an axiom, as I have heard Jeeves call it, that the smaller the man, the louder the check suit, and old Bassett’s apparel was in keeping with his lack of inches.'

'Prismatic is the only word for those frightful tweeds and, oddly enough, the spectacle of them had the effect of steadying my nerves.'


I think Bertram Wooster would have fit right in at Pitti:
‘You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning.’ ‘Decidedly, sir.’ ‘Spring and all that.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove.’ ‘So I have been informed, sir.’ ‘Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg. I’m going into the park to do pastoral dances.’

The perils of allowing women to dress you:
‘You see I’m wearing the tie,’ said Bingo. ‘It suits you beautiful,’ said the girl. Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and sex;


In the days when the cummerbund was newfangled:
'The only gleam of consolation, the only bit of blue among the clouds, was the fact that at Roville I should at last be able to wear the rather fruity cummerbund I had bought six months ago and had never had the nerve to put on. One of those silk contrivances, you know, which you tie round your waist instead of a waistcoat, something on the order of a sash only more substantial.'


On Jeeves' constant attempts to restrain the young masters' tendency towards the tacky:
'...there had been a certain amount of coolness in the home over a pair of jazzy spats which I had dug up while exploring in the Burlington Arcade. Some dashed brainy cove, probably the chap who invented those coloured cigarette-cases, had recently had the rather topping idea of putting out a line of spats on the same system. I mean to say, instead of the ordinary grey and white, you can now get them in your regimental or school colours. And, believe me, it would have taken a chappie of stronger fibre than I am to resist the pair of Old Etonian spats which had smiled up at me from inside the window. I was inside the shop, opening negotiations, before it had even occurred to me that Jeeves might not approve. And I must say he had taken the thing a bit hardly. The fact of the matter is, Jeeves, though in many ways the best valet in London, is too conservative. Hide-bound, if you know what I mean, and an enemy to Progress.'

 

[Russell Street]

I barely read any fiction, so all I can think of is this bit in "The Catcher in the Rye"

For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life. Ten times worse than old Thurmer. On Sundays, for instance, old Haas went around shaking hands with everybody's parents when they drove up to school. He'd be charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You should've seen the way he did with my roommate's parents. I mean if a boy's mother was sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old Haas would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents.

I think of this often when wearing my spectator shoes. There is also some part where Holden's roommate wants to borrow his houndstooth jacket, and Holden is resistant in fear of the shoulders getting stretched.

 

[Algernon Crisp]

Regarding the famous white mess jacket with brass buttons -

Jeeves: "I assumed it had got into your wardrobe by mistake, sir, or else that it has been placed there by your enemies."

 

[Algernon Crisp]

Bertie bought some new hankies, and took up the shop's offer to embroider his initials on them.

Jeeves: Shall I lay out one of your novelty handkerchiefs for you today, Sir?

Bertie: Oh, come off it, Jeeves! Everyone wears things with initials on them nowadays.

Jeeves: I thought the practice was restricted to those who were in danger of forgetting their names, Sir.

 

[Algernon Crisp]

Can't remember if this was in the books or made up for show. Good line, regardless:

Bertie: Doesn’t look at all bad, does it?

Jeeves: A violin case would complete the effect very creditably, sir.

 

[claphamomnibus]

Regarding the famous white mess jacket with brass buttons -

Jeeves: "I assumed it had got into your wardrobe by mistake, sir, or else that it has been placed there by your enemies."

Excellent.

 

[Don Aldduck]

Giacomo Leopardi's “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death” may be a bit long for some and still here we go:

FASHION -- Madam Death, Madam Death!


DEATH -- Wait until your time comes, and then I will appear without being called by you.

FASHION -- Madam Death!

DEATH -- Go to the devil. I will come when you least expect me.

FASHION -- As if I were not immortal!

DEATH -- Immortal?

"Already has passed the thousandth year,"
since the age of immortals ended.

FASHION -- Madam is as much a Petrarchist as if she were an Italian poet of the fifteenth or eighteenth century.

DEATH -- I like Petrarch because he composed my triumph, and because he refers so often to me. But I must be moving.

FASHION -- Stay! For the love you bear to the seven cardinal sins, stop a moment and look at me.

DEATH -- Well. I am looking.

FASHION -- Do you not recognise me?

DEATH -- You must know that I have bad sight, and am without spectacles. The English make none to suit me; and if they did, I should not know where to put them.

FASHION -- I am Fashion, your sister.

DEATH -- My sister?

FASHION -- Yes. Do you not remember we are both born of Decay?

DEATH -- As if I, who am the chief enemy of Memory, should recollect it!

FASHION -- But I do. I know also that we both equally profit by the incessant change and destruction of things here below, although you do so in one way, and I in another.

DEATH -- Unless you are speaking to yourself, or to some one inside your throat, raise your voice, and pronounce your words more distinctly. If you go mumbling between your teeth with that thin spider-voice of yours, I shall never understand you; because you ought to know that my hearing serves me no better than my sight.

FASHION -- Although it be contrary to custom, for in France they do not speak to be heard, yet, since we are sisters, I will speak as you wish, for we can dispense with ceremony between ourselves. I say then that our common nature and custom is to incessantly renew the world. You attack the life of man, and overthrow all people and nations from beginning to end; whereas I content myself for the most part with influencing beards, head-dresses, costumes, furniture, houses, and the like. It is true, I do some things comparable to your supreme action. I pierce ears, lips, and noses, and cause them to be torn by the ornaments I suspend from them. I impress men's skin with hot iron stamps, under the pretence of adornment. I compress the heads of children with tight bandages and other contrivances; and make it customary for all men of a country to have heads of the same shape, as in parts of America and Asia. I torture and cripple people with small shoes. I stifle women with stays so tight, that their eyes start from their heads; and I play a thousand similar pranks. I also frequently persuade and force men of refinement to bear daily numberless fatigues and discomforts, and often real sufferings; and some even die gloriously for love of me. I will say nothing of the headaches, colds, inflammations of all kinds, fevers -- daily, tertian, and quartan -- which men gain by their obedience to me. They are content to shiver with cold, or melt with heat, simply because it is my will that they cover their shoulders with wool, and their breasts with cotton. In fact, they do everything in my way, regardless of their own injury.

DEATH -- In truth, I believe you are my sister; the testimony of a birth certificate could scarcely make me surer of it. But standing still paralyses me, so if you can, let us run; only you must not creep, because I go at a great pace. As we proceed you can tell me what you want. If you cannot keep up with me, on account of our relationship I promise when I die to bequeath you all my clothes and effects as a New Year's gift.

FASHION -- If we ran a race together, I hardly know which of us would win. For if you run, I gallop, and standing still, which paralyses you, is death to me. So let us run, and we will chat as we go along.

DEATH -- So be it then. Since your mother was mine, you ought to serve me in some way, and assist me in my business.

FASHION -- I have already done so -- more than you imagine. Above all, I, who annul and transform other customs unceasingly, have nowhere changed the custom of death; for this reason it has prevailed from the beginning of the world until now.

DEATH -- A great miracle forsooth, that you have never done what you could not do!

FASHION -- Why cannot I do it? You show how ignorant you are of the power of Fashion.

DEATH -- Well, well: time enough to talk of this when you introduce the custom of not dying. But at present, I want you, like a good sister, to aid me in rendering my task more easy and expeditious than it has hitherto been.

FASHION -- I have already mentioned some of my labours which are a source of profit to you. But they are trifling in comparison with those of which I will now tell you. Little by little, and especially in modern times, I have brought into disuse and discredit those exertions and exercises which promote bodily health; and have substituted numberless others which enfeeble the body in a thousand ways, and shorten life. Besides, I have introduced customs and manners, which render existence a thing more dead than alive, whether regarded from a physical or mental point of view; so that this century may be aptly termed the century of death. And whereas formerly you had no other possessions except graves and vaults, where you sowed bones and dust, which are but a barren seed, now you have fine landed properties, and people who are a sort of freehold possession of yours as soon as they are born, though not then claimed by you. And more, you, who used formerly to be hated and vituperated, are in the present day, thanks to me, valued and lauded by all men of genius. Such an one prefers you to life itself, and holds you in such high esteem that he invokes you, and looks to you as his greatest hope. But this is not all. I perceived that men had some vague idea of an after-life, which they called immortality. They imagined they lived in the memory of their fellows, and this remembrance they sought after eagerly. Of course this was in reality mere fancy, since what could it matter to them when dead, that they lived in the minds of men? As well might they dread contamination in the grave! Yet, fearing lest this chimera might be prejudicial to you, in seeming to diminish your honour and reputation, I have abolished the fashion of seeking immortality, and its concession, even when merited. So that now, whoever dies may assure himself that he is dead altogether, and that every bit of him goes into the ground, just as a little fish is swallowed, bones and all. These important things my love for you has prompted me to effect. I have also succeeded in my endeavour to increase your power on earth. I am more than ever desirous of continuing this work. Indeed, my object in seeking you to-day was to make a proposal that for the future we should not separate, but jointly might scheme and execute for the furtherance of our respective designs.

DEATH -- You speak reasonably, and I am willing to do as you propose.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Giacomo Leopardi's “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death” may be a bit long for some and still here we go:

FASHION -- Madam Death, Madam Death!


DEATH -- Wait until your time comes, and then I will appear without being called by you.

FASHION -- Madam Death!

DEATH -- Go to the devil. I will come when you least expect me.

FASHION -- As if I were not immortal!

DEATH -- Immortal?

"Already has passed the thousandth year,"
since the age of immortals ended.

FASHION -- Madam is as much a Petrarchist as if she were an Italian poet of the fifteenth or eighteenth century.

DEATH -- I like Petrarch because he composed my triumph, and because he refers so often to me. But I must be moving.

FASHION -- Stay! For the love you bear to the seven cardinal sins, stop a moment and look at me.

DEATH -- Well. I am looking.

FASHION -- Do you not recognise me?

DEATH -- You must know that I have bad sight, and am without spectacles. The English make none to suit me; and if they did, I should not know where to put them.

FASHION -- I am Fashion, your sister.

DEATH -- My sister?

FASHION -- Yes. Do you not remember we are both born of Decay?

DEATH -- As if I, who am the chief enemy of Memory, should recollect it!

FASHION -- But I do. I know also that we both equally profit by the incessant change and destruction of things here below, although you do so in one way, and I in another.

DEATH -- Unless you are speaking to yourself, or to some one inside your throat, raise your voice, and pronounce your words more distinctly. If you go mumbling between your teeth with that thin spider-voice of yours, I shall never understand you; because you ought to know that my hearing serves me no better than my sight.

FASHION -- Although it be contrary to custom, for in France they do not speak to be heard, yet, since we are sisters, I will speak as you wish, for we can dispense with ceremony between ourselves. I say then that our common nature and custom is to incessantly renew the world. You attack the life of man, and overthrow all people and nations from beginning to end; whereas I content myself for the most part with influencing beards, head-dresses, costumes, furniture, houses, and the like. It is true, I do some things comparable to your supreme action. I pierce ears, lips, and noses, and cause them to be torn by the ornaments I suspend from them. I impress men's skin with hot iron stamps, under the pretence of adornment. I compress the heads of children with tight bandages and other contrivances; and make it customary for all men of a country to have heads of the same shape, as in parts of America and Asia. I torture and cripple people with small shoes. I stifle women with stays so tight, that their eyes start from their heads; and I play a thousand similar pranks. I also frequently persuade and force men of refinement to bear daily numberless fatigues and discomforts, and often real sufferings; and some even die gloriously for love of me. I will say nothing of the headaches, colds, inflammations of all kinds, fevers -- daily, tertian, and quartan -- which men gain by their obedience to me. They are content to shiver with cold, or melt with heat, simply because it is my will that they cover their shoulders with wool, and their breasts with cotton. In fact, they do everything in my way, regardless of their own injury.

DEATH -- In truth, I believe you are my sister; the testimony of a birth certificate could scarcely make me surer of it. But standing still paralyses me, so if you can, let us run; only you must not creep, because I go at a great pace. As we proceed you can tell me what you want. If you cannot keep up with me, on account of our relationship I promise when I die to bequeath you all my clothes and effects as a New Year's gift.

FASHION -- If we ran a race together, I hardly know which of us would win. For if you run, I gallop, and standing still, which paralyses you, is death to me. So let us run, and we will chat as we go along.

DEATH -- So be it then. Since your mother was mine, you ought to serve me in some way, and assist me in my business.

FASHION -- I have already done so -- more than you imagine. Above all, I, who annul and transform other customs unceasingly, have nowhere changed the custom of death; for this reason it has prevailed from the beginning of the world until now.

DEATH -- A great miracle forsooth, that you have never done what you could not do!

FASHION -- Why cannot I do it? You show how ignorant you are of the power of Fashion.

DEATH -- Well, well: time enough to talk of this when you introduce the custom of not dying. But at present, I want you, like a good sister, to aid me in rendering my task more easy and expeditious than it has hitherto been.

FASHION -- I have already mentioned some of my labours which are a source of profit to you. But they are trifling in comparison with those of which I will now tell you. Little by little, and especially in modern times, I have brought into disuse and discredit those exertions and exercises which promote bodily health; and have substituted numberless others which enfeeble the body in a thousand ways, and shorten life. Besides, I have introduced customs and manners, which render existence a thing more dead than alive, whether regarded from a physical or mental point of view; so that this century may be aptly termed the century of death. And whereas formerly you had no other possessions except graves and vaults, where you sowed bones and dust, which are but a barren seed, now you have fine landed properties, and people who are a sort of freehold possession of yours as soon as they are born, though not then claimed by you. And more, you, who used formerly to be hated and vituperated, are in the present day, thanks to me, valued and lauded by all men of genius. Such an one prefers you to life itself, and holds you in such high esteem that he invokes you, and looks to you as his greatest hope. But this is not all. I perceived that men had some vague idea of an after-life, which they called immortality. They imagined they lived in the memory of their fellows, and this remembrance they sought after eagerly. Of course this was in reality mere fancy, since what could it matter to them when dead, that they lived in the minds of men? As well might they dread contamination in the grave! Yet, fearing lest this chimera might be prejudicial to you, in seeming to diminish your honour and reputation, I have abolished the fashion of seeking immortality, and its concession, even when merited. So that now, whoever dies may assure himself that he is dead altogether, and that every bit of him goes into the ground, just as a little fish is swallowed, bones and all. These important things my love for you has prompted me to effect. I have also succeeded in my endeavour to increase your power on earth. I am more than ever desirous of continuing this work. Indeed, my object in seeking you to-day was to make a proposal that for the future we should not separate, but jointly might scheme and execute for the furtherance of our respective designs.

DEATH -- You speak reasonably, and I am willing to do as you propose.

Welcome back Donnie. Happy to see you again.

 

[Thruth]

Spy Hook - Len Deighton

When after thirty minutes or more Frank returned he was dressed in what for him were informal clothes: an old grey herringbone tweed jacket and flannels, but the starched shirt and striped tie wouldn't have disgraced any Mess. Just as I was able to make new clothes look shabby, so Frank was able to invest even his oldest garments with a spruce look. His cuffs emerged just the right amount and there was a moiŕe kerchief in his top pocket and hand-sewn Oxfords that were polished to perfection

 

[claphamomnibus]

Casino Royale - Ian Fleming

“Bond walked along to his room and sat down on the bed. He felt weak from the passion which had swept through his body. He was torn between the desire to fall back full-length on the bed and his longing to be cooled and revived by the sea. He played with the choice for a moment, then he went over to his suitcase and took out white linen bathing-drawers and a dark blue pyjama-suit. Bond had always disliked pyjamas and had slept naked until in Hong Kong at the end of the war he came across the perfect compromise. This was a pyjama-coat which came almost down to the knees. It had no buttons, but there was a loose belt round the waist. The sleeves were wide and short, ending just above the elbow. The result was cool and comfortable and now when he slipped the coat on over his trunks, all his bruises and scars were hidden except the thin white bracelets on wrists and ankles and the mark of SMERSH on his right hand. He slipped his feet into a pair of dark-blue leather sandals and went downstairs and out of the house and across the terrace to the beach.”

 

[claphamomnibus]

Brideshead Revisited contains some great passages:

'Sebastian entered – dove-grey flannel, white crêpe de Chine, a Charvet tie, my tie as it happened, a pattern of postage stamps – ‘Charles – what in the world’s happening at your college? Is there a circus? I’ve seen everything except elephants. I must say the whole of Oxford has become most peculiar suddenly. Last night it was pullulating with women. You’re to come away at once, out of danger. I’ve got a motor-car and a basket of strawberries and a bottle of Château Peyraguey – which isn’t a wine you’ve ever tasted, so don’t pretend. It’s heaven with strawberries.'

Advice for attending Oxford:

'You should go to the best lectures – Arkwright on Demosthenes for instance – irrespective of whether they are in your school or not.… Clothes. Dress as you do in a country house. Never wear a tweed coat and flannel trousers – always a suit. And go to a London tailor; you get better cut and longer credit...'

A description of the flamboyant Anthony Blanche:

'He was tall, slim, rather swarthy, with large saucy eyes. The rest of us wore rough tweeds and brogues. He had on a smooth chocolate-brown suit with loud white stripes, suède shoes, a large bow-tie and he drew off yellow, wash-leather gloves as he came into the room; part Gallic, part Yankee, part, perhaps, Jew; wholly exotic.'

What does one wear for dinner?

'My father must have been warned by Hayter that there was a guest, for instead of his velvet suit he wore a tail coat; this, with a black waistcoat, very high collar, and very narrow white tie, was his evening dress; he wore it with an air of melancholy as though it were court mourning, which he had assumed in early youth and, finding the style sympathetic, had retained. He never possessed a dinner jacket.'

Or for a spot of fox bothering?

'Cordelia, very smart herself, with her chin held high over her white stock, wailed when Sebastian appeared in a tweed coat: ‘Oh, Sebastian, you can’t come out like that. Do go and change. You look so lovely in hunting clothes.’ ‘Locked away somewhere. Gibbs couldn’t find them.’ ‘That’s a fib. I helped get them out myself before you were called.’ ‘Half the things are missing.’ ‘It just encourages the Strickland-Venableses. They’re behaving rottenly. They’ve even taken their grooms out of top hats.’

 

[Monkeyface]

‘The man [Donald Grant] had taken off his macintosh. He was wearing an old reddish-brown tweed coat with his flannel trousers, a pale yellow Viyella summer shirt, and the dark blue and maroon zig-zagged tie of the Royal Artillery. It was tied with a Windsor knot. Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity. It was often the mark of a cad.’

~ Ian Fleming in From Russia with Love, chapter 25

 

[Russell Street]

I totally misremembered this one. My recollection was Sherman McCoy, of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, thinking how his shoes ($650 [in 1987] New & Lingwood semi-brogues?) cost more than the average airport passenger's entire outfit. In a way, the actual passage is better.

He surveyed the crowd. Shorts, sneakers, jeans, football jerseys- Christ, who were these people? One by one the travelers were straggling out of Customs. Sweat suits, T-shirts, windbreakers, tube socks, overalls, warm-up jackets, baseball caps, and tank tops; just in from Rome, Milan, Paris, Brussels, Munich, and London; the world travelers; the cosmopolites; Sherman lifted his Yale chin against the tide.
When Maria finally appeared, she wasn't hard to spot, In this mob she looked like something from another galaxy. She was wearing a skirt and a big-shouldered jacket of a royal blue that was fashionable in France, a blue-and-white-striped silk blouse, and electric-blue lizard pumps with white calf caps on the toe. The price of the blouse and the shoes alone would have paid for the clothes on the backs of any twenty women on the floor.

 

[claphamomnibus]

I totally misremembered this one. My recollection was Sherman McCoy, of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, thinking how his shoes ($650 [in 1987] New & Lingwood semi-brogues?) cost more than the average airport passenger's entire outfit. In a way, the actual passage is better.

Been meaning to read this for a while now.

 

[Jan Libourel]

There are a lot of good descriptions of men's attire in Raymond Chandler's novels. I particularly liked it when Marlowe remarked to one (male) character, "You've got nice clothes and perfume, and you're as elegant as a fifty-dollar whore." Shows you how much the dollar has depreciated over the years.