THE GENTLEMEN EFFECT
Good clothes, old things, peculiar habits and the case for becoming a little more eccentric.
Christopher Rafael/Netflix
There is a particular sort of person who looks good without appearing to have spent very much time trying to look good. This is, naturally, infuriating.
The Gentlemen is full of them.
Ignore the cannabis empire for a moment. What makes the series so enjoyable is the world surrounding it: battered Land Rovers, enormous coats, old houses, silk scarves, signet rings, muddy boots, peculiar relatives, good tailoring and people who appear entirely comfortable being slightly odd.
It makes you want to improve your wardrobe, buy something at an auction and develop a completely unnecessary expertise in fly fishing.
Which may not be a bad idea.
Because somewhere along the way, we have become terribly sensible about personal style. We are told what the essential wardrobe consists of. We save outfits on Pinterest. We buy the loafer everyone else bought. We discover the same tasteful interiors, the same restaurants, the same watches and, increasingly, the same faces.
Perhaps what The Gentlemen gets right isn't British style at all. It is personal style.
And personal style requires a little eccentricity.
BUY CLOTHES THAT GET BETTER WHEN YOU RUIN THEM
A good wax jacket should not look pristine.
Neither should a leather jacket, a pair of boots, a canvas bag or, arguably, a man over the age of 35.
One of the pleasures of the clothes in The Gentlemen is that they belong to the world they inhabit. Tweed, corduroy, heavy wool, leather, cashmere, old denim. Fabrics with texture. Things that can survive rain, dogs, pubs and being thrown into the back of a car.
This is a useful rule for buying clothes generally: choose things that will look better in ten years than they do today.
A beautiful wool coat. Proper leather shoes. A battered Barbour. A navy blazer. An old pair of Levi's. A silk scarf. A really good jumper.
And don't save them for best. That rather defeats the point.
HAVE ONE THING THAT'S SLIGHTLY RIDICULOUS
Christopher Rafael/Netflix
This is important.
A wardrobe composed entirely of tasteful classics can very quickly turn you into an estate agent.
You need an interruption.
An enormous ring. Red socks. A silk scarf tied strangely. A leopard-print coat. Yellow driving gloves. An antique brooch on a man's jacket. A velvet dinner jacket worn somewhere that absolutely does not require a velvet dinner jacket.
The trick is not to assemble these things into an outfit. The minute everything is eccentric, you're in costume.
Wear something slightly peculiar with completely ordinary clothes and refuse to explain it.
Even better if someone dislikes it.
STOP BUYING EVERYTHING NEW
The quickest route to looking like everybody else is shopping in exactly the same places as everybody else.
Go backwards.
Vintage shops, antique fairs, eBay, charity shops, auction houses and your grandparents' wardrobes contain the things that make an outfit interesting precisely because they weren't selected by an algorithm yesterday afternoon.
An old signet ring with somebody else's initials is more interesting than a new one.
An antique Albert chain is better than the fashion version inspired by it.
A slightly battered leather holdall has more charm than something whose main selling point is that an influencer was sent one.
This doesn't mean everything has to be expensive. Quite the opposite. Some of the best things are £20 objects nobody else wanted.
You just need a good eye and a willingness to rummage.
DRESS UP WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO
This may be the easiest one.
Wear the jacket to the pub.
Put on the earrings for lunch.
Wear lipstick to buy potatoes.
Get the good coat out for the school run. Wear a shirt to dinner at home. Put perfume on when nobody is coming over.
We have become remarkably good at saving our nicest things for occasions that rarely arrive.
The cooler approach is to decide that Tuesday will do.
GET A PROPER COAT
There is an extraordinary amount of power contained in a coat.
You can be wearing an ancient T-shirt underneath and nobody needs to know.
Look for something long, heavy and slightly dramatic. Wool, tweed, trench, waxed cotton, leather. Ideally vintage. Ideally with pockets deep enough to conceal your entire personal life.
The same principle applies to men and women: outerwear does most of the work.
Invest accordingly.
BORROW FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WARDROBE
Some of the best style exists in the territory between traditionally masculine and feminine clothes.
Women in men's tailoring. Men wearing jewellery. Huge shirts over silk. Evening dresses under enormous coats. Men's watches on small wrists. Pearls with denim. Brogues with something delicate.
Susie Glass understands this particularly well. Her clothes are feminine without being pretty and masculine without becoming severe.
The contrast is what makes it interesting.
DEVELOP SOME PECULIAR TASTES
Christopher Rafael/Netflix
Style isn't only clothes.
The people we find interesting tend to have interests that cannot be purchased as a matching set.
Learn about old watches. Grow dahlias. Collect first-edition paperbacks. Shoot film. Learn backgammon. Buy records. Keep a ridiculous car alive. Go to auctions. Know how to make one very good martini. Learn the names of birds. Become unnecessarily knowledgeable about Italian lamps.
Not because these things are fashionable.
Because you like them.
That distinction is increasingly rare.
LET YOUR HOUSE BE A LITTLE WEIRD
The same rule applies indoors.
Not everything needs to coordinate.
Hang paintings too low. Keep books everywhere. Buy the strange lamp. Frame something that isn't technically art. Put an enormous chair somewhere inconvenient. Keep your grandmother's china. Buy the slightly alarming portrait at the antiques market because you can't stop thinking about him.
A home should contain evidence.
Where you've been. What you've inherited. What you collect. Who you love. What you find funny.
It shouldn't look ready for a stranger to move into tomorrow.
AND FINALLY, DON'T TRY TOO HARD
This is unfortunately the difficult bit.
Eccentricity collapses the moment it becomes performative.
You cannot order a personality along with a pair of loafers.
The point isn't to dress like The Gentlemen. It isn't even really about looking British. It is about allowing your clothes, your home and your habits to become a little more specific to you.
Keep things longer. Buy fewer but stranger things. Wear the good clothes. Mix expensive things with cheap things. Ignore the occasional trend. Acquire objects with stories attached to them. Become extremely particular about something completely inconsequential.
In other words, stop asking whether something is cool.
The coolest people usually decided they liked it first.
Christopher Rafael/Netflix