PROFILE
hard-wired into his beliefs since they are the basis of fine cut in the first place. Cut, colour, cloth – the sartorial man’s 3 Rs – are the pillars of this time-honoured temple. Brummell’s was an elegance which immediately attracted the Prince Regent, and for a while these two made a fashionable couple at race meetings and banquets. By so doing, Brummell was catapulted
onto the social scene and beyond to the extent that when having a fitting for a suit, tailors would stuff the pockets with money in the hope of being introduced to the future king. There is also a story that when a tailor was asked by a customer which cloth to choose the immediate answer was Brummell’s choice, not the Prince Regent’s. Born in 1778, 18 years into the reign of George III, Brummell used his charm, wit and waspish tongue to great effect, believing wholeheartedly in himself. The confidence in the way he dressed – sharp and even aloof – finds an echo in many of his purported statements, bon mots and repartee. When asked by an ardent lady who was eager to meet him to come to her chambers and take tea, the reply was a delicious put-down. “Madam, you take medicine, you take a walk, you take a liberty, but you drink tea.” On another occasion, accounting for his lack of a female companion, he said: “What could I do... when I saw Lady May eat cabbage?” This coming from the man who once confessed to only having eaten a single pea. High, meaty Regency standards indeed. Looking at the menus of the celebrated Careme, for example, vegetables only ever have walk-on parts. Brummell was iconic on the Regency scene, hugely instrumental and influential without being of birth, but possessing, for a short time at least, a legacy from his father, some £25,000 or so which today would amount to a spending power of some £1.5 million. There are few surviving images of
Brummell today and most are well known. Despite not being classically good looking and having once had his nose broken by a horse’s kick, they all show a definite haughtiness, an air of extreme grace and that famous, intricate cravat – some 12 inches wide. The only image which is close to caricature is one R
Classic morning dress from the summer months of 1807
“George Bryan Brummell – known to all as Beau – set an almost impossible standard for simple elegance in Regency England – a man who cheerfully eschewed the sugary flummery of satins and silks and patterns for streamlined minimalism”
38 SAVILE ROW STYLE MAGAZINE
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