New York Inspirations: Convention Centre

Strolling briskly around mid-town Manhattan, one cannot escape the style-savvy well-cut thirty-somethings who populate the place. More than any other city, perhaps, in New York there is no compunction about fine tailoring, and no reticence about showing it off. Yet, strange to report, it is by-and-large pretty conventional; where it isn’t, it stands out.

Standing out, as The Sartorialist is wont to show us, ought to be a good thing. A man who knows who he is ought to be applauded for following his heart. But I must admit I received mixed reactions from the conventionally clad over a moderately daring pair of plaid trousers. My nether man was perfectly attired in the well-fitting, English-designed, Italian-stitched, product of Scottish sheep. Never did such a sheep turn so many heads! Looks of admiration were welcome; looks of confused bewilderment were confusedly bewildering; exclamations of ‘oh boy, oh boy’, replete with shaking heads and expressions implying moral transgression, were rather vulgar. A woman rudely exhorted me to stop as I helplessly ascended an escalator in Bloomingdale’s, in order to ask me where in the world I bought such ‘pants’. In the same store, a member of staff eyed me up and down, particularly down, and commended me on my ‘very nice plaid’. Workmen in sweatshirts and jeans (blue collar is an outmoded image), smoking cigarettes, called after my lithe legs, partly to ridicule, partly as masculine recognition. In short, my lower half has never received so much attention… in public.

I had not intended to shock. I had not sought the limelight – God knows, Broadway has enough people clamouring for that – or any semblance of notoriety. I merely wore what I thought were rather spectacular trousers. It seems that I am not the only one to have an eye for the spectacular, but the jury is still out on whether I am the only one to have a taste for it. What I take away from the experience is a deeper knowledge of what constitutes acceptable behaviour on the part of strangers as they encounter me in that haphazard manner wrought by urban living. It is rude to stare. It is more rude to stop and stare. It is more rude still to stop, stare, point and gawp. And it is rudest of all to stop, stare, point, gawp and declaim aloud the ill-made decisions of others. A man should have enough about him to be able to take what he sees in his stride; quietly to acknowledge good taste where he sees it, if it is appropriate so to do; and discreetly to go about his business without comment or any outward sign of recognition where he disapproves. Nobody was hurt by this particular pair of trousers. Some even found pleasure in them. But whatever one’s inner reaction, there is no real need to risk offending the sartorially splendid stranger, or the victim of fashion, by sharing those feelings in crass and conspicuous ways.

New York Inspirations: The F-Word

Fine dining, as aforementioned in these pages, is perhaps not what it was. It would be remiss of me, therefore, not to point out the exceptions to this rule, as and when I am lucky enough to experience them. In New York, culinary Mecca, who else might be expected to provide such an experience, but a rather shouty fair-haired Englishman, televisually famed for his furious temper.

Fortunately for me, the only F-word to consider on this august occasion at the London Hotel, W. 54th St., was ‘food’. For the frugal fine diner (and who isn’t these days?), Mr. Ramsay offers a $65 repast for early birds, and the three-course menu turns out to be a seven-course delight, once you factor in all the little amuses bouche along the way. I am told this particular establishment has two Michelin stars: clearly I have been ill-raised for I could not possibly fathom how on earth it could have been finer. The forks were really all lined up. Food, service, atmosphere, attention to detail, but especially the food, were all exquisite. Whomsoever Mr. Ramsay has employed as chef du cuisine really ought to feel justly proud.

Despite the fantastic food, perhaps the foremost factor of this experience was the license it gave to the diners to behave as manly men and womanly women. Knowing how to sit; how, and what, to order; how to eat; and, most importantly, how to converse. It is rare to be afforded the opportunity to have one’s good graces aired and appreciated, and in an environment befitting the effort. A few awkward customers had clearly swum too far out, but for the most part this exemplary experience allowed for feelings of formal, yet relaxed, friendship to be fostered. In a small pocket of New York, polite men and women knew how to feel, and did not feel out place.

New York Inspirations: I Believe

Since I’m in New York for a few days, I thought it would be germane to offer some words inspired by the history of this great city, or rather, by one of its great men. I presume John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s ‘I Believe’ speech is well-enough known so as to require no extra exegesis from me. The lines typically quoted, and which sit at the foot of the Rockefeller (GE) building in New York City (pictured), can still serve as a guide for young men in a world which hardly ever stops to think about what a man is:

I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every
possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character – not wealth or power or position – is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual’s highest fulfillment, greatest happiness and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.

The words were spoken in a radio broadcast in 1941, in support of the Selective Service Parents’ and Neighbors’ Committee (of the United Service Organizations), of which Rockefeller was Honorary Chairman. They are extraordinary words, in and of themselves, but I might take the opportunity to dwell upon another part of the speech, which I presume to be much less well-known. In times of war and fear, it strikes me that these words are needed as much now as they were in 1941:

Those who say that the man who is tough makes the best soldier, know little of human nature. He who carries on when physical forces are exhausted is the man who is buoyed up by the spiritual force called morale, who is fighting, not for the lust of killing, but for a principle, a great cause, dearer than life itself. I certainly do not want my son made tough by his military training, nor do you. I do not want my son just because he is a soldier, to be abandoned by those influences that make for character. I want him to come back home, whatever his military experiences may be, still a man with ideals, holding duty and honor above life.

Man at Table

‘You must sit up straight at the table, like a little prince, until everybody else has finished’, said Mother. This comment was typically met with an irksome visage, expressive of frustration at seemingly pointless rituals. I was a boy, brimming over with surplus energy, and with plenty of rigorous derring-do with which to be getting on. Sitting still in a chair, waiting for the lazy mastication of my elders and betters, was a trial. The key to being released from this polite obligation was the observance of another one, in the phrase: ‘Please may I be excused’. Rough and tumble resumed with alacrity. And kids never suffer from indigestion.

These were valuable lessons. There were many more besides, reinforced daily as the price of home cooking. The end in mind was never convincing to my child mind: ‘One day you’ll be invited to business dinners, or job interviews, and you wouldn’t want to be judged for the way in which you hold your fork, would you?’ The emphasis was always negative. There were no points for doing things correctly; only penalties for getting it wrong. It has not exactly turned out that way. Mother vastly overestimated what kind of courtly instruction was being doled out in the other homes. As the social playing field has levelled, one’s boss is as likely to hail from dung-heap stock as he is wont to stutter for the silver spoon in his teeth. I know this only too well, and Mother foresaw it. But she expected things to level up, and I needed to make the grade. It rather seems, lamentably, that things levelled down.

Behaving with dignity at table is much more likely to be noticed as exceptional these days. You may be applauded for it, but you may also be mocked. The cut and thrust world, so it seems, has superseded the more delicate manoeuvrings of the knife and fork. One is lucky ever to see a soup spoon (pictured), let alone a fish knife. And why do so many places expect me to recycle my cutlery from an appetizer and use it again on a main? Would you pour white wine into a drained glass of red? Well, so it seems, perhaps you might. Cutlery is symbolically important, as well as being functionally integral to the process of nourishment. Leave your knife and fork in a certain way, and you declare to the room that you are finished. Plates should not be cleared away until everyone’s irons are likewise arranged. In restaurants this rule is dead. Why won’t wait staff actually wait? As I am forced to fidget in my seat by the constant interference of intrusive servers, they occasionally moot the words ‘excuse me’. Well, for once, no you may not be excused.

French Kissing

Growing up in working-class England, a cuff was typically best known metonymically in the context of adult hand brusquely encountering the auricular appendage of impertinent child. As a consideration of style, an integral part of the male shirt, it was barely given a thought.

In other echelons, confusion reigned. Barrel cuffs and link cuffs, single and French, each with prescriptions concerning what clothes went with which. Thankfully, rules have relaxed. Working-class kids, their ears intact, might receive a decent education; the cuff link has become everyday wear, at least for some.

I rarely see single linked cuffs. The French variety, fastened in the ‘kissing’ style (inside pressed to inside), are more common, although still a minoritarian preference compared with the boring old button. Disturbingly, many of the cuff links I see on the nouveau riche wrist are truly awful, tasteless, and cheap. The cuff link is an elegant but ultimately functional fastening (pictured: solid silver squares on a Ben Sherman cuff). It ought not to be ostentatious. Male adornments are risky things and, without proper care, jewellery can make a man look vulgar and crass. Nothing conveys a baseness of character so well as ‘bling’. All that glisters, etc. To avoid such unwholesome projections, keep one’s French kissing discreet.