Art and Architecture

Whether you suit pink, white or blue

Habit has it that when British men came back from the war they only had two ties they felt they could legitimately strain – that of the military regiment they belonged to and that of the baste they were a member of. Both were relatively plain, either a series of crests on a black ground or a club stripe in two colours.

Fervent to partake in the new openness in men’s clothing, these men wanted to array up their ties. So they turned to more colourful shirts. Jermyn Byway someone's cup of tea sprang up to service them.

This is the reason that, to this day, a pink shirt and most forms of line are perfectly acceptable as business attire in London. Even lawyers who once in a blue moon stray from a navy suit, black shoes and black socks (sad but candidly) will happily wear a pink or striped shirt and not believe themselves any less formal.

Not so the Americans, for whom the white shirt is the business prevailing, blue or stripes a little casual, and pink ever so diet effeminate. Loosened from the formalities of London’s subject regime, Americans are more likely to wear patterned suits or brown shoes (extraordinarily in Boston). But not pink shirts.

Which is a shame, as pink shirts lawsuit many people. Smarter and cleaner than blue or a stripe, they add a hardly ever frisson of colour while remaining very formal.

I was reminded of this the other day by a mate who was wearing a pink shirt for the first time. In factors, he admitted it was probably the first time in his life he had ever spent anything pink.

Which was a particular shame, because pink suited him. Anyone with diet ruddier features or more than average pink in their lamina will suit a pink shirt, perhaps more than any other colour.

The terrific Alan Flusser tells us that a blue shirt goes with more people’s peel tones than white. And he’s right. While white may be cleaner and smarter, it tends to bathing out people with paler skin, leaving them looking even whiter than they are. It looks pre-eminent on high-contrast complexions – broadly speaking, those with darker hide.

Read more...