WHAT YOUR FAVORITE BOOK CAN TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR STYLE

:: Found this article on The Fashion Spot. It was delightful. ::

by Brendan Sullivan

Monday, 04 January 2010 11:26

 

 

The Modern Gentleman gets literary...
Last month I was on business in Puerto Rico, and I did an interview with a local web magazine. After meeting with me, the editor said, "You have a very unique sense of style, how do you decide what to wear?"  And I had no idea what to answer.

Over the years, I have made my share of style faux pas - I bought Gap khakis and took swing dancing lessons along with everyone else in the 90's.  Style is separate from fashion, in that style is an expression of self and fashion is an expression of time.  However, what does a gentleman do when he gets to a certain age and income and feels like he still has a pair of gap khakis somewhere in his closet?  Check your bookshelves for style cues.

And I don't mean the contents of your bookshelves.  A summer-long penchant for Harry Potter shouldn't put you in English Boarding-school chic.  Take an honest look at your bookshelves and think about the volume you are most proud to have completed.  There is pretty much no greater rift than that between the literary community and the fashion world.  My fellow Hartfordian Mark Twain was probably the last fashionable writer between himself and (son-of-a-tailor) Gay Talese (who writes in a three-piece-suit).  Twain was once asked why he wore a white suit and he replied, "Clothes make the man, naked people have little or no influence on society."

But Twain also said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over people who can't read them."

Now, I will admit that reading too much into literature is something that can drive a person crazy and make them do something unseemly: like become an English Major.  I also think it is obscenely curious that our cultural critics - the people we count on to tell us where our culture is going (and why!) - have no idea how to dress.  Chuck Klosterman, a great wit and brilliant thinker, has an entire essay (originally published in Esquire of all profane places) about how he does not know how to dress.  When he needed a sweater, he left his desk at Spin Magazine (where he spends all of his time telling us how and why a band or video game is brilliant or terrible) and became dumbfounded by the need to chose a sweater at Gap.



I then turned to the late David Foster Wallace, a brilliant man who once referred to the dozen Ivy-educated print journalists in matching khakis who followed the McCain campaign in 2000 as "the army of the twelve monkeys."  Wallace felt bright enough to comment on others' style, but did you see him at a book signing?  The man actively dresses like he just stepped out of his parent's basement after a month-long session of Rock Band.



So let's focus on great books, like Twain said.

Ulysses by James Joyce
I spent about half of my college life looking up obscure references in the 694-page Gifford guide to Joyce's insanity-inducing 783 page novel.  I was on the verge of entering insanity, and my nerves were a bit frayed.  To this day, I have a penchant for vintage wool three-piece suits, and I have never owned a comb.  When you see the few pictures of the Joyce clan, you are struck by how they clearly had no money, but they tailored their own clothes.



In Search of Lost Time (all volumes) by Marcel Proust
Thank you for not growing that mustache.  Your least favorite thing about shirts is when you find the right color, but the collar hangs flat like a cowboy shirt.  Also, the question, "How are you?" takes you fifteen minutes to answer.

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Five words, cowboy: Owen Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Have you ever purchased an item called "sneaker shampoo?"  Do you admire women who wear headscarves?  Do you wonder why more cultures don't have double-decker busses?  Then you should read this book.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The original modern gentleman wrote this beauty about a poor Cuban fisherman, but from the standpoint of a well-educated, yacht-owning American writer slumming it in Cuba.  If you can remember where you were when you first read this book (I was in a monastery in Sienna, reading it in the hallway light, for example) you are a candidate for some Kennedy Hyannis-style.  You can get away with wearing socks about half as much as you do, and you have earned the right to pop your collar when wind or weather dictates.  You can also wear Ray Bans without feeling like a film school drop out.  You are a lucky person and it shows when you are still tan in February.



For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
If you haven't already figured this out: you look great when all the shoulders in your coats and sweaters have epaulets.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
You have one nice suit and wear it only when you have to.  Once a week you chose between meeting up with an old friend for a drink, or eating dinner at all. Most of your friends wonder when you're going to get your act together.  It's not a perfect life, but that's how things are when you are very young and very poor and very happy.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Pick the man whose lines you most anticipated in advance, and there's your guy.  This boys in this book are like the Sex and the City girls of the 1800's.

• Hindley: you're probably very competitive, which makes you look petty and uncharitable.  You also drink a little too much.  I'm guessing that you have one suit inspired by "The Apprentice."
• Edgar: the sensitive, caring foil to Heathcliff.  You are the guy who is "just friends" with women who are "always a bridesmaid, never a bride."  I'm not going to give you style advice, because you'll probably take it as criticism and cry about it on Facebook.  You are the opposite of "the world is out to get me" meaning you think the world can't be bothered to get you.  You've probably never asked for a raise, and still have three ties that your mother bought for you.
• Linton: Linton is the Miranda of the bunch.  No one thinks of herself as "a Miranda" but many get called one behind their back.  If you feel like the sickly, unwanted child Linton: you're probably a 13 year old boy.  You don't need style advice.  You need to go play outside and go skin your knee on something.  I promise you that one day everything will be different.
• Heathcliff: you see a picture of Rimbaud and you think he has cool hair.
  
  
  
  You can wear about twice as many scarves as your friends and you wonder if it's just Russell Brand who can tuck his pants into his boots.  (It is.  But you can still admire him.)
• Hareton: at the age of 23, you already had a suit for funeral.  You probably had about five sisters treating you like a Ken doll your whole life.  You don't need style advice.  You need to maybe not fall in love with your cousins.
  
  I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max
  You wanna know the best way to get your hair to do the perfect "blow out?"  Drop a live toaster into your bath.
  
  The Illiad by Homer
  You work out daily, but only at home with push ups, sit ups and jogging.  You have a favorite UFC-fighter (or whatever they're called) and you get goosebumps and feel like Prometheus when the Olympic torch gets passed through your town on the evening news.  You don't need style advice, you gorgeous hunk of man, you.  You're looking for a life partner so that you'll have someone to "spot" you.
  
  The Odyssey by Homer
  Your idea of a great date is to show up at her apartment and cook up a feast.  Meanwhile, you debunk some of the mysteries of early 90's vintage Champagne, and at the end of the night you've already done the dishes and you put a blanket over her while she falls into the wine-dark ocean of sleep.  Before you tip-toe out, you divy up the the leftovers into tupperware portions she can take to work for lunch.  Who cares what you dress like!  When are you coming back, handsome?
  
  The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
  You are terrible at keeping secrets.
  
  Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but you probably get emails from boatshoes.com.  You also probably stayed up all night in a monastery in Sienna reading The Old Man and the Sea.
  
  White Jacket by Herman Melville
  Written just one year before he wrote Moby Dick, this novel centers on the homemade coat of a whaling man, which soon becomes his nickname.  About half the outerwear you own is "quilted" and you can tell different birds apart by their flight pattern.  I don't care who you are: that's awesome.  Good for you.
  
  Dune by Frank Herbert
  You know what would be the greatest accessory for you to wear?  You should get a vintage Darth Vader mask so your dweeby, mouth-breathing face won't ever been seen in public.
  
  Story of my Life by Giacomo Casanova
  Original or the Penguin Classics Abridged Version?  Penguin: pssh, whatever.  You'll be bald by next spring, and wonder what happened to all those nice girls you mistreated when they won't talk to you anymore.  You'll have chicken wings for dinner once a week.  Original six volume set: Honestly, did the renaissance man exist until Casanova embodied him so perfectly?  You call you mother "just because" and you always compliment the hostess on her cheese selections at parties.  The only time you missed work this year was to play hooky with a visiting friend and get lost in The Met.  You don't like watching movie trailers because they frequently mis-appropriate classic-opera samples.  People love having you over for dinner because they put your Thank You Notes on their fridge after.
  
  The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  If I looked at your haircut and then I looked at a boy whose step-mother took him to the barber once in September, and then marooned him at a boarding school and picked him up for Christmas break, would you both look just as shaggy?  That's fine.  The only thing is, you're twice his age. Grow up.  Also, Ramirez wears a Red Sox cap when he is at work.  You should not.
  
  
  
  Cash by Johnny Cash
  You are a romantic who is searching for the perfect love.  You keep your wardrobe simple, because you don't like to be distracted by choice.  You could, however, stand to read more.
  
  A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  Strangely you are the opposite of the fussy, overweight, uncleanly main character.  You and your mom get along fine (since you moved out) and you have had the same shirt size since your senior year of college.  This book is just funny and you couldn't put it down.  If you're black, you probably grew up down south.  If you're white, you probably actually have all of those elusive black friends that white people all swear they have.  If you're Indian, you are probably sick of the "quirky" Indian character on TV shows.
  
  The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
  How far did you get?  Inferno: Whatever, you Twighlight tourist.  Reading about a lost love doesn't make you romantic, it actually borders on necrophilia.  Purgatorio: You know, there's so much more to life than repenting.  Before you can love others, you need to learn to love yourself.  Paradiso: Isn't it amazing that true love, hard work, perfection and striving for your goals are all worthwhile things?
  
  Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  In the 90's, did you successively own Miles Davis' Bitches Brew on LP, cassette, and CD?  Is it on your iPod now?  Do you remember which song gets cut off on you LP-to-cassette dub vs. your purchased-cassette version?  You probably could lose the Larry David glasses, and the next time you go shopping you should get your measurements taken and you might be surprised at what jacket-size you actually are.  Hint: the shoulders of all your tops should end where your shoulders do, not two inches lower.