My style icon: Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster

I’ve featured a number of well-dressed Torontonians on this site and always ask them about their style icons, men who inspire them to dress better. A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about finding your own style icon and that got me thinking, who’s mine? I’m always inspired by Cary Grant‘s elegance and G. Bruce Boyer‘s understated style, but in terms of an icon, I couldn’t come up with one. Then I turned on an old TV show and figured out who my style inspiration is, and he’s not even real.

Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and Stephen Fry as Reginald Jeeves.

Last year, after reading some of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories, I looked around the YouTubes for filmed versions. Up until that point, I thought Hugh Laurie was an American actor whose claim to fame was staring in House, a show I never watched. Turns out that somehow I had managed to miss Hugh Laurie’s entire career as a comedian in England. I also had no idea that he’d worked for so long with Stephen Fry, who I knew only as the voice of the Harry Potter audio books and from his excellent podcast. Discovering their sketch comedy was a revelation, but discovering their version of Jeeves and Wooster was life changing.

Set in the 1930s, the show, originally broadcast from 1990-1993, is campy, silly and occasionally very funny. I spent a good portion of my free time last autumn racing through all four seasons which, sadly, get much campier and sillier as they go on. Story lines become repetitive and predictable. And it looks like everyone involved is growing as tired of the whole thing as the audience.

But like Downton Abbey, I also watched the show for the clothes. In the case of Jeeves and Wooster, I fell in love with Hugh Laurie’s wardrobe. It follows the traditional British approach to town and country wear – grey in town, tweed in the country – but being the 1930s, there is a fair amount of flair and elegance. A year after first discovering the show, I returned to re-watch the first season only to find that I have built much of my winter wardrobe around ol’ Bertie Wooster’s, especially his country wear.

I love the mix of autumn colours in these outfits, especially the way he combined tweeds with sweaters and vests, usually brown or mustard. This is a look you might see on much older men these days, but it’s a reminder that when young men wear them, they look at once elegant and casual.

About three episodes into the series I noticed that when Bertie was out in the country, he had a leather strap attached to his lapel. Its purpose is revealed in one episode when he pulls it out and on the other end is a pocket watch. I had to have one. They are called “leather Albert straps” and were common in World War I for carrying around your watch when you didn’t have a waistcoat. Also, I assume, a leather strap is rather more practical in battle than a jangly metal one.

And thanks to the internet, just a few weeks later I had one in my button hole, purchased from the only maker I could find, Chris Balm, in England.

I have also added a tattersall waistcoat to my wardrobe thanks to Bertie. I love not only the suggestion of English country sport it evokes, but the pattern and colour (mine is more cream than mustard) which contrast nicely with a blazer or tweed sport jacket. I also have a wool cap and thanks to Kingpin’s Hideaway, a 1930s unlined brown patterned tie. Even though I can’t remember Bertie ever wearing a Fair Isle sweater, I’m sure I’d fit right in at a shooting party at one of Bertie’s haunts, Totleigh Towers:

But it isn’t just Bertie’s country wear that I adore.

Bertie Wooster’s city wardrobe is the pinnacle of 1930’s menswear. I am a big fan of the British cut, and Laurie wears it so well: the slightly padded shoulders, the fuller chest and the nipped waist. In fact, the above outfit is something that with very little variation – an umbrella instead of a walking stick, slightly slimmer pants – I regularly wear in the winter. To do this, I’ve brought some of Bertie’s city accessories into my wardrobe, like dress hats, pocket watch chains and collar pins (you can see one of his in this post’s first photo).

This may all seem like dress up, like cosplay. Trust me, I know about cosplay. For years I dressed as Japanese anime characters at conventions. But this is different. I am not trying to dress just like Bertie Wooster or express my love for the show. I am trying to pick up on all the subtle hints and ideas behind dressing well that are sprinkled throughout the show – specifically by the costume designer Dany Everett, who did a fantastic job re-creating the look of the 1930s, arguably the last time, until now, that men dressed so well.

I’m also not dressing like this because I want to live in the 1930s. I love the internet, vaccines and social justice, thank you very much. But watching shows like Jeeves and Wooster, Downton Abbey, and Mad Men gives us an opportunity we don’t have in every day life: to see well-dressed men. And we can take from these shows the elements we like and mix them up with modern dress.

For instance, I took my outfit from above and remixed it with different items, like a contemporary fedora hat, a modern-cut blue blazer and slim green cotton pants. The effect, I think, is classic and contemporary, exactly the style I aspire to.

I write quite a bit about dressing for respect and sense of self, but my main reason, honestly, is enjoyment. Above all else, watching TV shows for the clothes, looking for rare items, mixing up my wardrobe is simply fun. Think of it this way: your body is the canvas, your wardrobe the paint. You get to be the artist.

Related posts

We all need a bit of Jeeves in our lives Why more guys should watch Downton Abbey Style resolutions that will make you a better man My approach to style, circa September 2018