By Tony Sylvester.
“On the nice shore of the French Riviera, about half means between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a big, proud, rose-colored resort. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and earlier than it stretches a brief dazzling seashore.
“Recently it has develop into a summer season resort of notable and trendy folks; a decade in the past it was nearly abandoned after its English clientele went north in April.”
So begins F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1934 novel Tender Is The Evening, his story of American ex pats en residence amongst the palms, firs and golden seashores of the Cote D’Azur on the twilight of the Jazz Age – that fertile period of pleasure and enchantment between the wars.
Nearly a century later the time period ‘Riviera’ nonetheless resonates: a shorthand for glamour and relaxed opulence that the novel helped foster, alongside Hemingway’s The Backyard Of Eden, Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse and others, and the nascent superstar gossip {industry} that fed the general public’s urge for food with images of the wealthy and well-known at play.
What Fitzgerald says is right. The resort he fictionalised for the novel, The Resort Du Cap in Cap d’Antibes, had at all times shut from Might to September, following the vogue for the Riviera being a resort for wintering Brits.
They started popularising the advantages of winter solar there within the Eighties, following the arrival of the railway from Paris, extending the Victorian custom of the wholesome seashore go to to additional flung locations.
Then within the mid-Twenties, Cole Porter rented a chateau down the street from Resort Du Cap for the summer season, and the Individuals began to reach in drive, intermingling with English aristos, Russian emigres, native artists and the cream of Paris society. This inspired resort homeowners to remain open for this faddish new endeavour.
Right here we hand over to Farid Chenoune, the French menswear author: “American socialites not solely frequented Palm Seaside, Newport, Nassau, et al however may additionally now be discovered on the French Mediterranean Coast the place wealthy, solar in search of Europeans (notably English) vacationed in the course of the interwar interval. It was thus within the early Thirties that the Riviera turned a modern spot for spring and particularly summer season holidays whereas previously it had been a winter resort.
“By way of the historical past of trend, this shift represented the approaching of age of summer season as a totally fledged “season” in itself.” They have been witnessing not solely the beginning of concept of the ‘summer season season’ but additionally the invention of the clobber that went together with it.
In addition to the tabloid press, we’re fortunate that we’ve modern menswear publications such because the industry-targeted Attire Arts and extra customer-friendly Esquire, to provide us an perception into what these new vacationers have been carrying.
What’s fascinating to me now could be that 10 a long time later, lots of the garments look not solely fashionable, however completely sensible and sound. Not the entire outfits, after all, however items from every picture.
As Chenoune goes on to elucidate, “Summer season trend unfold from one spot to a different, like pollen carried by a swarm of cosmopolitan bees. This explains its cross-bred, worldwide nature, the product of fast a number of borrowings from fishermen’s gears, sailors’ uniforms, sportswear and colonial costume (each army and civilian). On this respect, summer season clothes was already extra fashionable than some other…”
I’m lucky to personal a few summer season problems with Attire Arts from the interval (1932 and 1933) and the modern resonance is putting. Other than one-piece wool bathing fits, there’s little that might be misplaced in at this time’s vacation put on rotation. I’d have added males’s lace-up espadrilles to the record, however that’s my specific choice.
Among the items Chenoune lists are:
- Summer season suiting(in seersucker, shantung, linen and ‘palm fibre’)
- Gaberdine, blazers, bush shirts(safari jackets)
- Polo shirts, sailor smocks
- And maybe the one anachronism of the bunch, the ‘Spencer’ or mess jacket – basically a dinner jacket reduce quick like a bolero, or a tailcoat with out tails.
The important thing to referencing Riviera model at this time might be sustaining a stage of relaxed formality, whereas utilizing material, color and texture to show the distinction from a workaday wardrobe – in the same method to the distinction between a lounge go well with and a dinner go well with for instance.
There are additionally garments suited to the seashore and sunbathing – shorts, trunks, flip-flops, however right here I’m extra involved with dressing away from the water, for the day or night.
The modern images of the day, the wealth of commercial photos in these magazines, and the evocative illustrations from the likes of Laurence Fellows and Robert Goodman can all be used to assist construct appears.
The primary and maybe most blatant selection is the collection of an odd jacket and trousers reasonably than a go well with. That is maybe essentially the most putting change from the English holidaymakers of the late Victorian age to post-WWI travellers.
The English nonetheless holidayed in two-piece fits of linen or gentle wool, paired with starched collars, ties and costume footwear – so the one variations between their lounge fits on the town and their vacation garments have been the lighter weight and paler palette. The swapping for odd jackets of visibly tactile and slubby cloths – uncooked silk, dry weave ‘Panama’ wools and even Terry material – made for an immediately seen leap ahead.
This goes hand in hand with the opposite important pattern: splitting color throughout an outfit, as a substitute of maintaining a uniform tone. Darker jackets have been instantly paired with gentle trousers and vice versa.
That is seen most clearly within the illustrations of Fellows and Goodman, reasonably than the black and white images of the day (a problem we encountered earlier than in the PS article on color and tradition).
Fellows pairs coral trousers with ecru jackets, tan shirts with forest inexperienced slacks, in addition to exhibiting the extra accepted maritime palette of navy with cream. Only a few of the gents drawn are in a singular hue.
Different pointers are just like the thought of holiday-specific tailoring supplies. Shirts must be particular and seasonal, not merely costume shirts unbuttoned. A band collar or open lido-collar work properly on this division.
Equally, whereas ties are restrictive and impractical the general accord usually misses that pop of color and sample. The obvious reply is a silk or cotton scarf, which is finest tucked behind the collar reasonably than sprawled out throughout the chest. Assume Cary Grant in To Catch A Thief: his red-and-white neckerchief offers simply sufficient visible elevate behind the stripe of the round-neck matelot knit, with out overpowering the whole lot else.
For footwear, it’s doable to maintain the benchmade high quality however dial down the formality. Unlined loafers are the plain selection, however I’d make the case for closed-toe sandals as properly.
Sadly, not lots of the massive names make them for males lately – Edward Inexperienced used to have the ‘Rangoon’ mannequin and John Lobb the ‘Olympe’, however like most good issues, they appear to have vanished.
Whereas Cheaney, Church’s and Ralph Lauren nonetheless do variations, I used to be completely happy to see Ludwig Reiter add the ‘Triestiner’ mannequin to their catalogue this summer season, a closed-toe sandal on a very good, elegant final in brown or black perforated calf. That is completely the ticket, worn socked or sockless, and I want the black color myself – not the same old selection for summer season months, nevertheless it does give me essentially the most choices throughout my wardrobe.
Extra informal footwear may be added, if approached with warning. Espadrilles are a robust candidate (Manesh’s piece was a pleasant in-depth look) and I’m reasonably keen on CVOs – cotton vulcanised oxfords, which appeared across the identical pre-war time we’re referencing, morphing into the ever-present deck shoe over time.
After all, regardless of having this historic street map, there isn’t any substitute for laborious fought expertise; trial and error. I shudder once I recall one private outfit that fell very a lot on the facet of error.
Invited to a summer season wedding ceremony in Liguria years in the past, I delved into my considerably dilettantish sartorial information of the time and got here up with a cream-linen go well with from Mark Powell, with peaked lapels and a slight kick flare to the trouser, worn with a white penny-collared costume shirt, purple knit tie and tan bucks.
It was a catastrophe. I used to be attempting to emulate the spirit of the jazz age however overdid it. Examine that to the picture from final summer season under, with a black fresco blazer worn with white herringbone slacks and espadrilles, and I feel the result’s rather more harmonious.
Free and straightforward, that’s the important thing.
