Dressing For Dinner – He Spoke Style – He Spoke Style

Like a classic fougère, Ralph Lauren offers up an alluringly distillation of a glamorous past, swelling those mystic chords of memory and evoking the better angels of our nature so as to inspire us all to not forget a more elegant age and way of life. More than that too, his designs so strongly evoke Americana, taking inspiration from the full melting pot of American history – no social group, strata or period, less worthy of 15 minutes on the red carpet than another – American democracy to the last.

Ralph has always been a pioneer, unafraid to chart the farthest frontiers of good taste. Here is where we find Western and workwear sitting comfortable in the frame alongside sophisticated Park Avenue penthouses.

I’ve often looked in admiration at such compromises to the rules. When it came to black tie however, it was not a look I felt comfortable to explore myself. I would struggle to think of a typical black tie occasion where such a look might work for me personally. The allure of black tie is about dressing up, whereas these elements seemed to suggest dressing down.

If the pandemic of the last few years has taught me anything however it’s to seek occasions out where none might otherwise exist. So want of an outlet to express myself and elevate the day-to-day I’ve ended up often wearing cravats of an evening.

Devoid of opportunity to leave the house, silk dressing gowns, smoking jackets and opera pumps have come to fill my growing search history. The danger with some of these elements is that there’s a certain dandified air (although interestingly, it is one that Ralph always managed to successfully avoid).

One of the looks I’ve come to like more as I’ve seen it done effectively however is pairing denim and chambray shirting fabrics with traditional black tie elements – something that I’ve seen Benjamin Phillips (formerly of Drakes), Lyonnel Ahouissoussi (of Cifonelli), and writer and general all-around bon-viveur Matt Hranek, all adopt with typical elan and style; Matt even going further and having a denim-and-black tie book launch party (coincidently at Ralph Lauren’s The Polo Bar). So inspired, it’s a look I’ve started trying to pull off myself too.

Required Reading

All sartorial experimentation should begin at home and so I’ve taken to testing this out by wearing a Drake’s chambray button down that is a wardrobe staple. Owning several, it is perhaps my most worn shirting option – perhaps tempering any affectation even further by natural familiarity.

I’ve taken to pairing this with an old J.Crew Ludlow shawl collar dinner jacket that might otherwise have sat unseen in the wardrobe. On other occasions, I’ve also tested this with an Ede & Ravenscroft double breasted dinner jacket but find the shawl collar more fittingly casual and better suited.