Sprezzatura vs trying too hard.

[tropicalbob]

Quote from Fading Fast: "Thinking a little more about this thread, I've almost come to the belief that if you know about "sprezzatura -" as it relates to dressing, then you are probably incapable of acting in a "sprezzatura" manner. Once you are actively thinking about it, you have defeated your ability to do it."



NOW I think we are finally getting to the heart of the matter. To further my quest for understanding and enlightenment on this subject, I have sought out some classic quotes from Zen Buddhism. Then I inserted the word "sprezzatura" as necessary in the Zen quote:

• “When an ordinary man attains sprezzatura, he is a sage; when a sage attains sprezzatura, he is an ordinary man.”
• “To study sprezzatura is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to attain spezzatura.”
• “Have good trust in your sprezzatura … not in the sprezzatura that you think you should be, but in the spezzatura that you are.”
• “Sprezzatura never exists entirely alone. Everything is in relation to everything else.”
• “When you are present, you can allow sprezzatura to be as it is without getting entangled in it.”

Now, Grasshopper, try to snatch the sprezzatura from my hand!

Roman Catholic dogma says that if anyone has considered becoming a saint then he can never become one. Perhaps this is a related idea.

 

[tropicalbob]

And he'll never get there if he ties his sweaters around his neck.

 

[Benproof]

Errrrm.

One of the first criterion required for sainthood requires the contender to be dead.

Sprezzies look best, ahh, um, contending for the first criterion for sainthood

 

[BlueTrain]

I notice that Cary Grant's photo isn't in this thread for some reason.

Most of this thread went over my head. Personally, I think your clothes should not draw attention to themselves. No one should even notice what you're wearing, which, I will admit, takes careful planning. But typically, you're doing the same thing every day with the same clothes in your closet. It's not so difficult. And unless you absolutely, positively, have to wear a suit everyday, it doesn't even have to be that expensive. Contrary to what is often said, I don't think expensive things last any longer, at least when we're talking clothes and shoes, although cheap things will always look cheap. However, where I work, only one person wears a suit and tie every day: my boss. I wear a dress shirt and tie but never a suit. My suits are too good to wear to work if I don't have to. But my boss's boss, who owns the company, usually wears a suit, too, but almost never a tie. That's one of his privileges, I suppose. Only one person here is a stylish dresser and he pulls it off very nicely, but almost never wears a suit. But you should see his shoes!

Somewhere, I have a photo of my father, probably from around 1940, wearing a suit with a decidedly pinched-in waist and a collar pin. I don't remember if he was wearing a vest or not and I don't remember anything about the tie, either. He always wore a dress hat on Sunday, too, his only day off. But you wouldn't have noticed anything special about the way he dressed.

 

[Patrick Hall]

Personally, I think your clothes should not draw attention to themselves. No one should even notice what you're wearing, which, I will admit, takes careful planning...Somewhere, I have a photo of my father, probably from around 1940, wearing a suit with a decidedly pinched-in waist and a collar pin. I don't remember if he was wearing a vest or not and I don't remember anything about the tie, either. He always wore a dress hat on Sunday, too, his only day off. But you wouldn't have noticed anything special about the way he dressed.

This has long been a school of thought about tasteful dressing. Cary Grant was indeed famous for his restraint. Currently Patrick Grant (no relation) of Norton and Sons is the poster boy for a contemporary commitment to impeccably fitted minimalism. I think this sentiment goes as far back as Beau Brummell himself. The problem is that your father, or the venerable Mr. Leach, or Patrick Grant would elicit endless comment on their carefully planned, circumspect wardrobing in most contemporary settings. The band of acceptable daily garb for men has gotten so narrow and so narrowly casual, that anything beyond dark jeans and a collared shirt is likely to draw attention. Even a simple sport coat thrown on top will raise eyebrows. This means that if you are a man who desires to make dressing a pleasure, and if your interest turns towards tailored clothes, the "don't draw attention to yourself" rule for tasteful dress isn't going to be a very useful maxim for gauging the quality of your kit.

 

[Tiki Tom]

The band of acceptable daily garb for men has gotten so narrow and so narrowly casual, that anything beyond dark jeans and a collared shirt is likely to draw attention. Even a simple sport coat thrown on top will raise eyebrows. This means that if you are a man who desires to make dressing a pleasure, and if your interest turns towards tailored clothes, the "don't draw attention to yourself" rule for tasteful dress isn't going to be a very useful maxim for gauging the quality of your kit.

I completely agree with this. It is unfortunate. As Patrick said, I toss on a sport coat and people say "Ooooh! You are all dressed up." More often than I care to admit, I find myself self-censoring myself and "toning it down". I'm not proud of it. The world has been taken over by Jeans, t-shirts, and athletic shoes.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, I don't know about that. My father didn't dress for my high school graduation the same way he was dressing (when he "dressed up") in 1940. But what you could wear and get away with has always been relatively narrow and it's always changing. After all, if you actually wear the same clothes all the time, they only last so long. Then, when you go out to buy replacements, you find that in most cases, you can't find they same things you bought five, ten or fifteen years ago. And on top of that, you really can't dress like you were twenty when you're fifty. You might also be shocked when you travel abroad and see that people are wearing the same things they are back in the states. The only difference is that the guys wearing the button-down shirts are Americans.

On the other hand, what is acceptable daily garb, as you call it, depends entirely on where you spend your days. If you work downtown, you'd probably wear a suit to work. Same if you worked uptown. But way out here in the suburbs, close to the airport, that would come off as stuffy, although the guys at the bank still wear suits. It should take no effort whatsoever to get dressed in the morning, except that it helps to have the lights on. The one thing that is the most trouble about getting dressed is tying my necktie. I find that relatively narrow wool ties are the easiest to tie and fit all collars. Incidentally, when I started to work here my boss, the one who wears a dark blue suit every day, was still wearing tab collars. I expect he even wore detachable collars when he was young. He grew up in Northern Rhodesia. He's lost his accent.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, one more thing I meant to mention. Some people think that a suit is formal attire. It isn't; it's "informal." Formal clothes are tailcoats, day or night. I'm not sure what you call a dinner jacket. But informal is not the same as casual. These days, however, it becomes even more complicated. There's "smart" casual, business casual and I don't know what all.

Heaven knows, anything goes.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Here is a Sprezzatura element to be avoided. Looks like a creature is reaching out of his pocket to grab him by the throat. (In the second example, I get the feeling the creature is coming after me!)

 

[willyto]

In the firt photo the sunglasses are crying inside the pocket with those gloves.

On the second photo, why is he wearing 2 scarves and the lapels and collar like that? That looks like a peacock. Let me guess, Pitti Uomo.

 

[fiftyforfifty]

May I ask, why to keep gloves in front pocket, meant for pocket square.

 

[Hal]

...my boss's boss, who owns the company, usually wears a suit, too, but almost never a tie...

An utterly horrid look - sloppy, unfinished and (I believe) incongruous (though all too frequent, particularly in London). But who can tell him that?

...The band of acceptable daily garb for men has gotten so narrow and so narrowly casual, that anything beyond dark jeans and a collared shirt is likely to draw attention. Even a simple sport coat thrown on top will raise eyebrows. This means that if you are a man who desires to make dressing a pleasure, and if your interest turns towards tailored clothes, the "don't draw attention to yourself" rule for tasteful dress isn't going to be a very useful maxim for gauging the quality of your kit.

Sadly, all too true. And those responsible for the this narrowing down probably think that they have "liberated" men's dress!

 

[BlueTrain]

I think the suit without a necktie is easily understood. He wears a suit because he can afford lots of suits and because it speaks to his entrepreneurial position. Yet he doesn't wear a tie because he isn't required to and see no point in it. Only my boss and I wear neckties on a regular basis. Everyone else dresses casually. I wouldn't say we get any particular pleasure out of wearing what we wear.

It is said that in the Middle East, a necktie is considered to be a sign of Western ideas, tastes, etc. Yet they still wear suits. In other words, a man's suit and a man's necktie convey different things to the wearer and the observer. This can sometimes be carried to bizarre ends, as certain highly successful businessmen exhibit by always appearing in blue jeans but worn with otherwise dressy things and undoubtedly (I imagine) very expensive shoes. I don't think he carries his gloves in his jacket pocket, however.

Unless you are following a particularly rigid dress code from the employee handbook, there is no one responsible for what you wear and therefore, no one to blame. All you are doing is following the fashions, even if it doesn't happen to be contemporary fashions.

 

[GHT]

Sadly, all too true. And those responsible for the this narrowing down probably think that they have "liberated" men's dress!

It's not just the way men dress, it's society in general. There's no individuality, cars all look homogenised, houses the same, everything has a grey blandness to it. Or maybe it's me, does age do that to you?
I see people wearing something like a printed T-shirt, blue jeans and trainers, getting into a car that is styled to resist crashes rather than make the heart race, going home to the sort of house that small children draw as a square box with a window in each corner. The song: "Little Boxes" written and composed by Malvina Reynolds and made famous by Pete Seeger, in the early 1960's springs to mind. If you have never heard it, I promise, it will make you smile.

 

[ideaguy]

sprezzatura means relaxed to me; comfortable in ones' own skin (and clothing); done
right, you don't notice anything in particular-everything simply fits right and doesn't
hew to any particular fashionista statement; yeah, I try to fit the mold. Heckuva lot
easier trying to look comfortable than to march around posing like a Ralph Lauren model
who's 40 yrs younger than me...sprezzatura means a natural look to the whole person,
easy on the eyes, quiet on the ears; I've been trying to achieve the look without too much
posing in the mirror for a lotta years, and know when I get it right-people actually do look
and smile when I greet them; not blowing my horn, simply trying to come across like
I enjoy life on my terms, forgetting the Men's Journal guide to fashion.
just sayin...

 

[Hal]

I think the suit without a necktie is easily understood. He wears a suit because he can afford lots of suits and because it speaks to his entrepreneurial position. Yet he doesn't wear a tie because he isn't required to and see no point in it.

Easily understood, perhaps; but not, I think, justifiable on aesthetic grounds. To me such a man is thinking schizophrenically.

It is said that in the Middle East, a necktie is considered to be a sign of Western ideas, tastes, etc. Yet they still wear suits. In other words, a man's suit and a man's necktie convey different things to the wearer and the observer.

Here we are talking about different cultures. In the western world, ties have gone with suits. It has always amazed me why so many men in the western world apparently wanted to dress like the former President Ahmedinedjad of Iran.

This can sometimes be carried to bizarre ends, as certain highly successful businessmen exhibit by always appearing in blue jeans but worn with otherwise dressy things and undoubtedly (I imagine) very expensive shoes.

I am glad you have used the word bizarre - a very apt description. Since the 1990s, mixed modes of dressing (and therefore mixed messages of communication) have been "in" - and the results, as we see every day now, are truly bizarre.

 

[Hal]

It's not just the way men dress, it's society in general. There's no individuality, cars all look homogenised, houses the same, everything has a grey blandness to it.

One reason why I, although retired for some years now, have reverted to jacket and tie at least twice a week is that, to me, most casual clothing is simply nondescript.

 

[BlueTrain]

I remember the Pete Seeger song and he never said where we should live instead of where we have managed to be living. I lived in a shabby house when I was little, also in a log house for a while when I was in high school. I've struggled to do better. How presumptuous of anyone to presume to know where someone should live. Some are lucky to have a roof over their head.

I have a red car, not a grey one. I bought it last December. My old car was a Volvo. It was not grey. My wife drives a Volvo. It is not grey. My daughter drives a Volvo. In her case, however, it is grey.

In days of old, when I was young, I loved Rover sedans. I had two, a 2000TC and a 3500. Neither was grey. That was 45 years ago.

 

[Metatron]

Here is a Sprezzatura element to be avoided. Looks like a creature is reaching out of his pocket to grab him by the throat. (In the second example, I get the feeling the creature is coming after me!)

I think this would look good if the gloves were stuffed in a large patch pocket that could accommodate the gloves more comfortably, because that way it would appear that you did so absentmindedly.
With an elegant, small, jetted pocket like that, it is obvious that the wearer forced the gloves in there to make a statement.

 

[GHT]

I remember the Pete Seeger song and he never said where we should live instead of where we have managed to be living. I lived in a shabby house when I was little, also in a log house for a while when I was in high school. I've struggled to do better. How presumptuous of anyone to presume to know where someone should live. Some are lucky to have a roof over their head.

That is so true, I too lived in a rather shabby area of London's East End. Later, when I was grown and married, I had moved to an outer suburb. The neighbouring district of where I lived is a place known as Dagenham. It was built both before and after WW2. It housed the workers for the recently built (back then,) Ford car plant. So mundane and similar are the properties, not just the houses, but the schools, shops, community centres, everything, that the local standing joke was: There's two things on earth that can be seen from outer space. The Great Wall of China and the suburb of Dagenham. You are right about having a roof over your head, but my take on the song is not to mock those that have to live in places like Dagenham, but to embarrass the planners, architects and builders who are responsible for that kind of urban sprawl. Looking at the properties, you get the impression that those responsible held the view. It will do, after all, it's just trash for the masses. There is a lot more to it, but I will leave it there because inevitably, politics must be included in it, and that would get the thread locked and I might get a metaphoric slap on the wrist.