Being well dressed: who wouldn’t want that? Our century has swept away dress codes, and everyone now has the right to dress like the king. We may use as a yardstick for the culture of a state the question of how many of its inhabitants make use of this achievement of liberty. In England and America everyone, in the Balkan countries only the top ten thousand. And in Austria? I wouldn’t dare to answer the question.

An American philosopher says somewhere: a young man is rich if he has intelligence in his head and a good suit in his wardrobe. The man is well informed. He knows his people. What use is all one’s intelligence, if one cannot show it off with clothes? Because the English and the Americans demand that everyone be dressed well.

But the Germans do something else besides. They too want to be well dressed. If the English wear their trousers loose, they immediately inform them – I don’t know whether with the help of Vischer or the golden section – that this is unaesthetic, and only tight trousers can lay claim to beauty. Blustering, swearing and cursing, they let their trousers get looser year by year. But fashion is a tyrant, people will then claim. But what is that? Has a revaluation of values taken place? The English are wearing their trousers tight again, and precisely the same arguments are deployed concerning the beauty of trousers, except in the other direction. It makes no sense.

But the English laugh at the Germans, with their thirst for beauty. The Medici Venus, the Pantheon, a painting by Botticelli, a song by Burns, yes, those things are beautiful! But a pair of trousers? Or whether a jacket has three buttons or four? Or whether the waistcoat is cut high or low? I don’t know, I always get scared when I hear people discuss the beauty of such things. I get nervous when I am asked gloatingly about a piece of clothing: ‘Might that be beautiful?’

The Germans from best society are a match for the English. They are pleased when they are well dressed. Beauty has nothing to do with it. The great poets, the great painter, the great architect dress like them. But the little poets, painters and architects turn their bodies into an altar on which beauty in the form of velvet collars, aesthetic trouser materials and Secessionist ties is to be sacrificed.

What does it mean to be well dressed? It means to be correctly dressed.

Correctly dressed! It is as if with these words I had revealed the secret with which our fashion in clothing had hitherto been surrounded. People hoped to get to fashion with words like beautiful, chic, elegant, smart and dashing. But that isn’t what matters at all. What matters is to dress so that one stands out as little as possible. A red tailcoat stands out in the ballroom. Consequently the red tailcoat in the ballroom is unmodern. A top hat stands out when one is ice-skating. Consequently it is unmodern on the ice. In high society anything conspicuous is considered inelegant.

But this principle cannot be enforced everywhere. With a coat that went unnoticed in Hyde Park, one might very well stand out in Peking, in Zanzibar or in St Stephen’s Square. It is European. But we cannot demand that anyone who is at the height of culture should dress in the Chinese style in Peking, the East African style in Zanzibar and the Viennese style in St Stephen’s Square!

The principle thus receives a qualification. To be correctly dressed, one cannot stand out at the centre of culture. The centre of western civilization is currently London. But what are things like there? London is very big, and if one were to take a stroll one might find oneself in areas where one stood out very much in one’s surroundings. So one would have to change one’s coat from one street to the next. That is impossible. But now we have exhausted all eventualities, and we can give a complete formulation to our theorem. It reads: a piece of clothing is modern if one stands out as little as possible in it at the cultural centre on a particular occasion in the best society. But in the German middle and lower classes this English point of view, with which any elegant-thinking person would have to concur, encounters vigorous opposition. No nation has so many fops as Germany. A fop is a person who uses clothes only to stand out against his surroundings. Now ethics, now hygiene, now aesthetics are adduced to help explain this clownish behaviour. A common thread leads from Meister Diefenbach³ to Professor Jäger, from the ‘modern’ minor poet to the Viennese son of the grand house, linking them all together intellectually. And still they cannot bear one another. No fop can admit to being one. One fop makes fun of the other, and on the pretext of eradicating fophood, they constantly commit new acts of foppery. The modern fop, or the fop as such, is only one species from this broad family.

The Germans suspect this fop of setting the tone for gentlemen’s fashion. That is an honour that these harmless creatures do not deserve. From what I have said above it is clear already that the fop does not even dress in a modern way. But neither would that serve him well. The fop wears precisely what those around him think is modern.

Yes, does that not mean it is the same as modern? By no means. Hence fops in every city are different. What impresses in A has already lost its charm in B. Anyone who is still admired in Berlin runs the risk of mockery in Vienna. But the elegant circles who find it too petty to worry about such things will always privilege those changes in fashion that most escape the notice of the middle classes. They are no longer protected by dress codes, and it is not agreeable to them to be copied by everyone the very next day. Then, however, one would immediately look around for a substitute. To escape this eternal hunt for new fabrics and cuts, resort is made to the most discreet devices. For years the new form is carefully protected like an open secret belonging to the great tailors, until at last the beans are spilled by a fashion magazine. Then it takes a few years before the last man in the country becomes aware of them. And only now is it the turn of the fop to take charge of the matter. But on its long journey the original form has changed a great deal and also been subordinated to its geographical situation.

One can count on the fingers of one’s hand the great tailors throughout the world capable of attracting anyone according to the most elegant principles. There are Old World cities with a population of a million that cannot claim such a business. Even in Berlin there was none until a Viennese master-tailor, E. Ebenstein, set up a branch there. Before Ebenstein the Berlin court was forced to have much of its wardrobe made by Poole in London. That we have some of these names in Vienna is only down to the fortunate circumstance that our aristocracy is a constant guest in the Queen’s drawing room, has been sent to work in England a great deal and in this way transposed that elegant tone in clothing to Vienna, which took Viennese tailoring to a peak that is envied abroad. It can probably be said that the top ten thousand in Vienna are the best dressed on the Continent, because these great firms also brought the other tailors to a higher level.

The great firms and their immediate descendants all have one feature in common: fear of the public. Where possible they limit themselves to a small clientele. They are probably not as exclusive as some London houses, which open only on a recommendation from Edward, the Prince of Wales. But all outward pomp is alien to them. It was a great effort for the directors of the exhibition to move some of the best in Vienna to exhibit their products. One must acknowledge that they escaped the noose very skilfully. The only objects exhibited were those that could not be copied. The most skilful of all, perhaps, was Ebenstein. He is showing a demi-dress (here wrongly called a ‘smoking jacket’) for the Tropics (!), a hunting vest, a Prussian regiment member’s lady’s uniform and a ‘coaching coat’ with engraved mother-of-pearl buttons each one of which is a work of art. A. Keller is showing a tailcoat with the obligatory grey trousers in which one could calmly travel to England, alongside elegant uniforms. The Norfolk jacket also seems to be well made. Uzel & Son are showing the speciality of their workshop: court and state uniforms. They must be good, or else the company could not have maintained its status in this field for so long. Franz Bubacek has exhibited the Emperor’s sports clothes. The cut of the Norfolk jacket is new and correct. Herr Bubacek is showing great courage in this exhibition, and does not fear imitation. The same may also be said of the hunting clothes of Goldman & Salatsch, who are also showing their speciality, the uniforms of the yacht fleet. Joseph Scalley is showing a rich collection of uniforms with his company’s well-known precision. Emerich Schönbrunn perhaps forms a transition. Some pieces probably prove that their maker is capable of working elegantly, but they also display an inclination to make concessions to other circles.

But that brings my unconditional praise to an end. The collective exhibition of the Guild of Viennese Clothes-Makers does not deserve it. Sometimes when working for clients one must close both eyes, since the customer, by stressing his own desires, often holds sole responsibility for her own lack of taste. But here the craftspeople could have shown that they could probably compete with the big companies if they were given free rein. But most of them have missed this opportunity. Even in the choice of their material they reveal their ignorance. From covert coat material they make greatcoats, and from greatcoat material covert coats. From Norfolk material they make sports suits, from smooth cloth frock coats.

The cuts are no better. Few are approached from the perspective of working elegantly; most tailors have addressed themselves to fops. And they can revel in double-breasted waistcoats, checked suits and velvet jackets. One firm even puts blue velvet cuffs on the sleeves of a jacket! Now if that isn’t modern …

Here I will name some who have to some extent kept themselves out of this witches’ Sabbath. Anton Adam is good, but he cuts his waistcoats too low, Alois Decker also deserves a mention, Alexander Deutsch has a good winter greatcoat, Joseph Hummel a good Ulster and Norfolk, P. Kroupa sadly vandalizes an otherwise correct frock coat with a border, Emanuel Kühl is elegant, so is Leopold Kurzweil, Johann Neidl and Wenzel Slaby each have a proper frock-coat suit. Joseph Rosswall shows a good tailcoat. I would have liked to name another firm openly exhibiting its products. But when I tried to lift the flap of the Norfolk jacket, which is designed to allow freedom of movement to the arm with folded fabric, I could not. It was fake.