All eyes will be on Brad and George. But can any man pull off that Hollywood look?
I have had my fork eased by three-eighths, I’ve been cut all the way from the crown, my seat has been scooped out and my body is now in balance. I’ve got kick tape on both legs and I feel fantastic.
It’s the award season, and time to get out my evening dress. I am not going to the actual Oscars, naturally enough. But I do get invited to plenty of events that are billed as, you know, ‘the industry Oscars’. Recently, as compère, I handed someone their prize for being declared ‘Outsourced service provider of the year’.
So I need black tie. There is, however, something mysterious about mine. Every time I collect it from the cupboard it has toothpaste on the lapel. I don’t understand why this is since I never brush my teeth while wearing the jacket. But there is no point arguing with the facts.
As a result, one of two things happens when I am invited to a dinner-jacket event. I turn up wearing bow tie, black jacket and Macleans or I forget the suit and have to rush to Moss Bros at the last minute and rent whatever is in stock. It is time to get a proper, crisp, good-looking new suit and then leave it hanging in the office.
Unfortunately, proper, crisp and good-looking are slightly outside my range as a dresser. I am, I’m afraid, the Messi of messy (football joke, ask someone). Bill Gates has been described as an inky-fingered genius. I just got the inky fingers. When Mrs Foot protested that the donkey jacket her husband wore to the Cenotaph was ‘brand new’ I was sympathetic. If I were ever on the red carpet, I would have one of those discs marked ‘Miss’ pinned to my jacket, so as to save newspaper graphics departments the trouble.
A professional is definitely required. And fortunately, one is at hand in the form of Jeremy Hackett, the founder of the classy men’s outfitter that bears his name. The company had just been the official menswear stylist for the Baftas. It had dressed Stephen Fry (big man, super nice apparently, weight fluctuates, looked fantastic on the night), Cuba Gooding Jr (who made the Burgundy jacket work), Jim Broadbent and that good-looking guy in Great Expectations. And now it was my turn. Somewhat Lower Expectations.
‘Formal dress is not fancy dress,’ declares Jeremy, prescribing a restrained classic look for me. And he explains that the details – cufflinks, studs, shoes – are crucial. ‘It’s all about detail and fit.’ At this point he looks at my shoes, which were last polished during the coalition negotiations in 2010. He is a lovely, civilised man, Jeremy, who doesn’t give away much. But he couldn’t disguise a pained look. ‘You’d better borrow a pair from us,’ he says.
There are all sorts of materials I could have, apparently. And different weights of cloth. Graham Simpkins, Hackett head of tailoring, takes me through the choices. Hopsack, barathea, mohair, they’d all work fine. He says the mohair will give me a traditional, clean look and I reply that clean sounds good. This would have been the moment to ask about the toothpaste, I suppose, but I let it slide and now it will forever be a mystery.
Since an 8oz suit is too lightweight and doesn’t have enough structure, and a 12oz might be too heavy and hot, we settle on 9oz. Single breasted, peaked lapel, mohair 9, the decision is made.
Now the shirt. I ask if I should tuck the wings of my dress shirt outside or inside the bow tie. The answer, it appears, is neither. Jeremy tactfully guides me to a normal dress shirt and doesn’t demur when I joke that the wing collar is a ‘stupid idea I got off Brideshead Revisited twenty-five years ago’.
So far, so simple. Time for fitting and I try on the trousers. They have buttons on the fly. ‘Black tie is a military look,’ Graham explains, leaving me to struggle. If so, I am surprised we weren’t stuck in the toilet doing up our trousers when Hitler invaded.
Graham gives me a quick once over. We are going to cut the jacket from the crown (the shoulders) he says, shorten the jacket to balance your body, let out the waist and, I swear he said this, ease the fork in your trousers. Then we’ll put kick tape in to prevent fraying.
And so he did. I must say, it looks pretty good. Even I can’t ruin it. I am working on it, though.