 Sometimes a Cad Really Does Need a 21st Century Tailor
The modern world can be a time consuming place even at its most tranquil. Hours and minutes being ripped into fragments by ever increasing pressures and commitments all jostling for attention in our psyche. On one hand we have our responsibilities to that demanding dynamic, the one that is forever diversifying and hybridising – to which you must pay the utmost attention or else you shall fall – that which forever takes us to new heights of pleasure and abandoned exultation: that thing, we call, a social life. Yet, tugging at our obligations from other realms – realms of beauty and rapture – are our duties toward those things that are the very definition of our humanity, those things that take us on journeys of insight and splendour into the deepest secrets of reality, to new abstractions of our human predicament and forever further into the unknown – namely – art and creativity. And then, there is, work.
No matter what your profession, no matter how creative or important your job and no matter how hard you try to convince yourself (and others) at dull dinner parties how interesting your work is – whilst trying to attract attention from obviously unimpressed ladies – the fact remains: work is a ball bag and spoils everything. In fact, sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t do away with work altogether and instead stand in a huge circle and prod each other with sticks, from left to right, eight hours a day. Most jobs I have ever had were just as futile and seemed to serve no other purpose than provide work, keeping somebody thinking they are in some way terribly important and that they’re crummy lives matter a jot. Unfortunately, unless we completely reshuffle our priorities as a society – for it seems that no matter what your position, from the commonest worker to the managing director, you are always answerable to someone – it shall remain a hideous necessity.
Now, the knack to successful living is about excelling in each of the given fields. It’s no use getting a raise and respect in the boardroom if you don’t know the correct artists to discuss at parties that you haven’t been invited to anyway. Likewise, charm and wit are all very well until people start to notice that you never pay for drinks and your shoes are overly worn and wrinkled. As always, the greatest aid to success to anything is attire. You must always look your best and you must always give the impression that you never do anything other than that what you do now. Squint tie, crooked cufflinks and five o’clock growth may give you the appearance of an edgy character on the dance floor, but at nine a.m. shall earn you no brownie points in the boardroom – just as arriving for a party looking too conventional in navy blue pinstripes shall ensure that society turns sorrowfully away. However, sometimes it is impossible to find time to dress accordingly and you may think that at these times you have no choice but to compromise on your habiliments. But stop right now in what you’re thinking. No gentleman of any kingdom should ever be forced to compromise on style! Now I’m not suggesting we start a union demanding extra dressing time and grooming salons at work, no sir, I am not radical or boring enough to consider political solutions. I merely suggest that you follow my advice.
 Take the first scenario: You have a pressing dinner engagement followed by a night at the theatre with tickets for a nightclub to boot, however, the boss wants that report on his desk first thing in the morning and you’ll have to stay late in the office. You’ve worked out that by the time you’ve finished you’ll only just make it to dinner on time, what do you do? Well that’s easy – simply go home first, take your time with your apparel and arrive fashionably late. As long as you look good, all else can be forgiven. But what do you do in the second scenario? You have an important meeting at nine a.m. but there’s a society squeeze being held in a fashionable part of town this evening and you simply must attend. What to do? I would say that you should make an appearance, of course, but only stay for a few drinks and get home at a reasonable hour, giving you plenty of time in the morning to adjust and re-adjust your tie until perfect. But how many times have we gone out for ‘just a few drinks’ and ended up staying out all night? Every time? Well not to worry, there is another alternative and it comes from the Jack Stafford collection, providing modern suits for the modern man.
You may find it hard to believe that I would recommend a fashion mode from a country second only to Germany for badly dressed men, but don’t panic, Jack Stafford is British and has taken it upon himself to try and help the ineffectually attired Dutch, and a good thing it is too! Sometimes, whilst out for a stroll in Amsterdam, it’s as if I’m in the midst of a Jeremy Clarkeson convention, so shamelessly do they wear jeans and blazers, arrogantly even, tragically unaware of their criminal propensities. It is a sad thing to behold. So, when Jack opened up shop it came as welcome reprieve after so many years of fashion sickness. And Jack takes his fashion crusade very seriously, for although it means he loses 90 percent of business, he refuses point blank to sell only the jackets (jackets that would otherwise be forced into a denim marriage). They must buy the whole suit! It brightens the heart, in these modern times, to meet somebody who still puts principals before profit.
 The Jack Stafford collection sells only one design of suit. It is a patented zip suit made from the Italian Vitale Barberis fabric. When first designing the suit, Jack was aiming at something retro, something from the British mod era, a suit he could wear whilst performing on stage (Jack Stafford is also a musician - as well as a record company owner – and quite the renaissance man) but when the first suit was finally finished he realised he had invented something altogether modern and futuristically fresh. The suit is simple and almost formless but this means the wearer can adapt to any form. The suit can be worn anywhere and at any time, it looks cool in the night club (nobody would suspect, as you pull shapes on the dance-floor, that you sell laboratory equipment to large multinational corporations for a living) and tidy in the office (perfect camouflage for the morning after a night of ill morals, when your soul is in messy turmoil). In Amsterdam, where the bicycle is king, it is the perfect attire for travelling to work in stream-lined modality. They are a snip at 400 euros and you can check for yourself at jackstaffordcollection.com. The suit also operates as a time saving device. The upturned collar and zipped up front mean there is no need for a tie (the strip of fabric down the front of the suit replaces the tie as a streak of individuality) or shirt even, so you can be out of bed and on your way to work within 5 minutes (or if you are a heavy-weight cad with loose morals, you can be out of bed and down the drainpipe before the husband gets upstairs), and I only wish I had owned a Jack Stafford suit last month…
It was the morning of the most important meeting of my career. I had been working on my pitch for a month, it was the biggest client our company could have had and all the directors (including the managing director) were present. After realising the alarm on my personal organiser had been ringing for goodness knows how long , I jumped out of a strange bed in a strange apartment, managed to find the lavatory just in time to watch a multi-coloured, liquid display bursting triumphantly forth from my mouth, then spent the next half hour looking for clothes that had somehow been scattered all over the room (ahem). I tried desperately, with hands shaking like wet Chihuahuas in the wind, to do my tie but it was completely futile. All I could manage was a shoddy looking single knot, of a type worn only by defeatists. There were wine stains on my shirt. With no time to buy a replacement and the whiskers on my chin, I tried to tackle with a lady shave (if I had been wearing the Jack Stafford suit it would have been accepted as designer stubble); I now had blood stains to compliment the wine stains. I ran downstairs, cursing and swearing and hating myself deeply, and, after what seemed like a life-sentence, managed to find a taxi that delivered me to the meeting forty-five minutes late. I think I could have still pulled through up to this point, however, when I walked into the room ready to address the clients, there was just a split second where all eyes glanced, in surprise, at my nether regions. I followed the stare, glanced down expecting the worst and to my horror, I had, in my hangover haste, buttoned up the bottom button of my waist-coat. What a disaster! My confidence was now completely shattered. I stuttered, then stuttered some more before proceeding on in droning monotone like an embarrassed schoolboy forced to read to the class. It was truly pathetic. We lost the deal, my boss was furious and I bid adieu to more commission than I could hope to earn in a year. After the meeting, I was cornered in my office by my boss, where he screamed at me all red face and fury, about the disgrace I was becoming, about the choices in my life I had to make, about wasting my life away, about growing up, about duty and honour and blah, blah, blah. I was given a week’s suspension to think the whole thing over, then we would have a meeting to discuss my future at the company.
That week was spent in silent contemplation. It was true, I was completely wasting my life, pouring it down the drain, I really did have to start making changes, it was time for me to reach out and seize each day, so I determined to make some changes. I spent a whole week buying the right clothes for the day of the meeting. New spats, new suit, a waistcoat that spoke volumes, a shirt with frills and no tie. A tie was just not enough, it had to be a cravat to convey the changes taking place inside me. A cravat is to a gentleman what spinach is to Popeye. A week later I walked through the boss’ office door. He looked me up and down with a look of condescending satisfaction before starting with his ‘I wouldn’t be the success I am today if…’ speech. I listened for while whilst I thought about all of his successes. His huge house, his yacht, his lovely wife on Prozac, his ineffectual, inverted and socially challenged son who has just started as an office junior at the age of twenty-seven, his beautiful daughter; a daughter who has spent most of her life in rehab and psychiatric units since the age of fourteen. I also thought about all the fantastic times he’s had down at the club he’s been attending every weekend for the last forty years (a club that he promised me membership of if I had won the fore-mentioned deal) to discuss Tory politics with the same bunch of old cronies week in, week out. I think about the rumours and scandals surrounding him and high-class, speciality prostitutes. How much stress must a man contend with in his life before he is reduced to paying women to dress him up in nappies and feed him milk from a bottle?‘I’m sorry sir but I’m afraid I’ll have to cut you short,’ I interjected, just as he began quoting something from Calvin, ‘ but I actually came here today to hand in my resignation.’ The resignation letter I placed neatly on his desk ,‘Thank you for everything but I really have to be going now, I have some rather pressing engagements looming.
First I must meet some friends for lunch and drinkies, then off to watch some devised theatre, cocktails at eight then off to a soiree at lady van Schande’s town house followed by an all night party at the discothèque. Then I guess I’ll just keep going until the money runs out!'
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