Perfect white tie
Feb. 21st, 2015 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breakinglight11I am one of those people who thinks it's a shame that there is no real "dressing up" anymore. Mostly I think it's a good thing that in our daily lives we're allowed more freedom of expression in how we dress, and that we're not always being held to some rigorous arbitrary standard. But I do wish there were, in addition to that freedom, more occasions where it was expected and normal to dress according to formal rules. I love the way people, specifically men, look in formalwear, and there's just no occasion to ever wear black or white tie anymore. It's just so striking, so attractive. It lends an air of elegance, power, taste, discernment, and it looks so damn good.
Last year, the Met Gala theme was white tie. It was one of the few places outside of Downton Abbey one could actually see real people in white tie. Honestly most people didn't wear anything close to it. The handful of people who did didn't always execute it traditionally, and the aesthetic effects were variable. But the one person EVERYONE was talking about, as not only having nailed it, but having knocked it out of the park, was Benedict Cumberbatch.
Now I'm no Benedict Cumberbatch fangirl. I think he's charming and talented, but I really don't like how he's freaking everywhere, even in roles he's not suited for. I get how he's attractive but he doesn't really do it for me. But have you ever seen him in what he wore to the 2013 Met Gala? It's quite possibly the most exquisite white tie ensemble I've ever seen.
As I said, I'm a Downton Abbey fan, so I have a fondness and a familiarity for men who look GOOD in white tie. I still keep every image from the couture men's formalwear shoot the male actors did a couple years back on my iPad. They all look hot, though most of the articles have some kind of modern twist to them. But Benedict's here is so perfectly styled, so carefully composed, so exquisitely tailored that it makes for a sort of ur-example of a classic ideal. It flatters his figure, and the details are so thoughtfully chosen-- the exact distance of the waistcoat below the cutaway, the single Albert watch chain, the perfect length of the trousers. And it SO technical and correct, going back to the earliest codifications of the style. They throw the word "timeless" around, especially when it comes to the varying levels of men's formalwear, but dressed like this, Benedict could walk into a ballroom at any minute going back to 1870, and every woman's head would turn and murmur, "Who. Is. That?"
Last year, the Met Gala theme was white tie. It was one of the few places outside of Downton Abbey one could actually see real people in white tie. Honestly most people didn't wear anything close to it. The handful of people who did didn't always execute it traditionally, and the aesthetic effects were variable. But the one person EVERYONE was talking about, as not only having nailed it, but having knocked it out of the park, was Benedict Cumberbatch.
Now I'm no Benedict Cumberbatch fangirl. I think he's charming and talented, but I really don't like how he's freaking everywhere, even in roles he's not suited for. I get how he's attractive but he doesn't really do it for me. But have you ever seen him in what he wore to the 2013 Met Gala? It's quite possibly the most exquisite white tie ensemble I've ever seen.
As I said, I'm a Downton Abbey fan, so I have a fondness and a familiarity for men who look GOOD in white tie. I still keep every image from the couture men's formalwear shoot the male actors did a couple years back on my iPad. They all look hot, though most of the articles have some kind of modern twist to them. But Benedict's here is so perfectly styled, so carefully composed, so exquisitely tailored that it makes for a sort of ur-example of a classic ideal. It flatters his figure, and the details are so thoughtfully chosen-- the exact distance of the waistcoat below the cutaway, the single Albert watch chain, the perfect length of the trousers. And it SO technical and correct, going back to the earliest codifications of the style. They throw the word "timeless" around, especially when it comes to the varying levels of men's formalwear, but dressed like this, Benedict could walk into a ballroom at any minute going back to 1870, and every woman's head would turn and murmur, "Who. Is. That?"
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