Beaton in a Salzburg jacket before the ‘hands’ of guests at Ashcombe House, Wiltshire, 1934.
successful costume designer – he won Academy Awards for his costume designs for the Hollywood films Gigi (1957) and My Fair Lady (1964) – he never learned how to make clothes. Cooperation did not preclude conflict, however, and in 1965 Beaton criticised the Row’s tailors for their traditionalism.
As Beaton changed his wardrobe to suit the times, to demonstrate his continuing relevance and to detract from the signs of old age, he felt aggrieved that his London tailors did not. In 1965, at the age of 61, he lambasted Savile Row for what he perceived to be its sartorial lethargy:
It is ridiculous that they go on turning out clothes that make men look like characters from P.G. Wodehouse. I’m terribly bored with their styling – so behind the times. They really should pay attention to the mods ... the barriers are down and everything goes. Savile Row has got to reorganise itself and, to coin a banal phrase, get with it.
This sartorial spat, like so many in Beaton’s life, was short- lived and he returned to the Row after only a few months, having chastised himself for being ‘foolish enough’ to buy
suits from the house of Pierre Cardin in Paris that cost twice as much as those from Savile Row. Four months later, on October 8th, he bought his first suit, a green worsted three-piece, from Huntsman. It is interesting that Beaton signalled his return to the Row by visiting one of its more expensive tailors. It is possible that he was lured by the shop’s cutters, particularly the head cutter Colin Hammick and Robert Andain-Holt, who were subtly, but no less surely, bringing fresh ideas to the Row’s tailoring traditions; while Hammick may have been responsible for popularising the (now ubiquitous) wearing of blue shirts with suiting, Andain-Holt designed Beaton a sufficiently distinctive outfit with high-waisted trousers, asymmetrical cummerbund and a lapel-less jacket. Far from demonst- rating that Beaton merely kept pace with contemporary menswear trends, this suit would have done much to estab- lish the sexagenarian as a sartorial pace setter.
But looks could be deceptive. The Huntsman suit, which is not known to survive, indicates how Beaton’s require- ments from his wardrobe changed as he aged. The desire to shock and awe was still present, but the high-waisted
52 HISTORY TODAY SEPTEMBER 2016
CECIL BEATON
Above: Beaton dressed for the ‘Ascot’ scene in the musical My Fair Lady, whose costumes he designed, New York, 1956. Right: with Andy Wahol at the artist’s Factory, New York, 1969.
trousers were almost certainly a concession to comfort; around this time, he was also ordering waistcoats with longer back panels, presumably to provide greater warmth or greater discretion as he bent down to take photographs. Beaton’s contrasting sartorial decisions of this period stemmed from personal insecurities. In January 1971, at the age of 67, he wrote in his diary:
I still try to battle against all physical odds, and to try to wear clothes that are sufficiently attractive and unusual to take people’s eyes off the horror they camouflage. And someone told me a day ago that I had been counted as one of the best-dressed in a ‘list’ compiled in the USA. But what’s the point of my ... ordering a new suit if it has to be worn with a cherry on the tip of my nose?
As a result of the oestrogen supplements that he was taking following a prostate operation, Beaton’s upper body and face broke out in freckled spots in the late sixties, hence the reference to a ‘cherry on the tip of my nose’. This must
have been especially galling for a man so sensitive about his appearance.
The adoption of modern styles convinced contempor- aries of his continuing relevance and Beaton appeared to move easily among a new generation of creative talent, which included Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, David Hockney and the photographer David Bailey, who believed that Beaton could ‘fit into any time’ because he was adaptable, like a chameleon. In the early 1970s Beaton commissioned trousers that were belled, or flaired, to be two inches wider at the hem, clearly in line with the latest clothing trends. His diaries, however, published in a highly edited form from 1961, reveal that new menswear styles agitated him. Beaton may have criticised the Row for its traditionalism, but in his private writing he lamented the passing of Edwardian glamour, which was being challenged by a new generation of ‘beatnik teenagers’, ‘peasants and roughnecks’, clad in ‘sandals and blue jeans’. Beaton’s critical reaction to the very latest styles may explain why he adopted a more
FURTHER READING
Hugo Vickers, C. Beaton, The Glass of Fashion: A Personal
History of Fifty Years of Changing Tastes and the People Who Have Inspired Them (Rizzoli, 2014.)
Hugo Vickers, C. Beaton, Portraits and Profiles (Frances Lincoln, 2014).
D. J. Taylor, Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a
Generation: 1918-1940 (Vintage, 2008).
reminiscent of the Bright Young Things and the 19th- century London dandies who caught the eye of Baudelaire.
While social changes have created circumstances in which people might look more appreciatively and envious- ly on Cecil Beaton’s wardrobe, the appeal of his clothing has long been acknowledged by couturiers and designers. The British fashion designer Giles Deacon describes Beaton as a ‘phenomenal creative force’, who combined ‘lovely British wit and a sense of craftsmanship’. Savile Row tailor Richard James’ Spring/Summer 1990 collection was directly insp- ired by Beaton’s wardrobe. One of the highlights, which paid homage to a fancy dress costume he wore in 1937, was a Nehru-style jacket in pink raw silk. The four-button jacket was decorated with yellow silk organza appliqué roses and green silk embroidery.
The survival of Beaton’s wardrobe in museums on both sides of the Atlantic is a consequence of a deliberate, if ill-documented, attempt he made to preserve his style. It is possible he was inspired by those friends who had (some- times inadvertently) given their clothes to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, following his ‘Fashion: An Anthology’ exhibition in 1971. The decision to part with his clothing, particularly, in 1974, his Austrian clothes, may have been galling, but the stroke he suffered in the same year presumably gave his plans greater urgency. In 1976, Beaton agreed to auction his photographic archive, a decision Alistair O’Neill suggests was conceived to ‘secure an income and [cover] the cost of care for Beaton’.
Beaton’s belief that his wardrobe was worthy of becom- ing part of permanent museum collections in London and New York hints at arrogance, but it also demonstrates his awareness of how dramatically menswear had changed during his lifetime and an acknowledgement that, however fast fashion’s wheel revolved, new styles would always pay homage to the past. As he observed in his 1954 book, The
Glass of Fashion:
There is nothing new under the sun, and in art as in evolution, each new manifestation is merely the last link in a chain that stretches back to the beginnings of time.
Beaton’s assessment was as true then as it is today. In bequeathing his wardrobe to future generations, his condescension was therefore tempered by a concern that we recognise the cultural and historical meaning within our clothing, as he did in his, and be aware that, however distinctive the dresser, what we wear is always a product of the society in which our clothes are conceived, created and consumed.
bohemian style of dress in his late sixties, characterised by open-necked shirts, worn with scarves and nylon hats. Headwear helped Beaton to hide his thinning hair, which he had always cherished, but there is a more general sense that he was repudiating styles of clothing that he felt were being adopted without appreciation.
Beaton’s response to postwar fashion probably explains why he signalled out few people whom he admired for their dress and why his own approach to dressing is known to fewer, perhaps more ardent, style aficionados. But things are changing. For champions of dandyism and vintage clothing, Cecil Beaton is increasingly invoked as somebody who successfully combined clothing from different count- ries, periods and styles. In light of his enduring enthusi- asm for historic styles, it is appropriate that interest in his wardrobe has been stimulated by a similar appreciation of clothing styles from the past. The renewed appreciation of vintage vogues has, in large part, been engendered by recent economic upheavals.
S
INCE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS of 2008, social and sartorial commentators have observed that many men have changed how they dress, either by reverting to traditional garments that convey authority and professional accomplishment – demonstrat- ed by a renewed interest in classic tailoring – or they have eschewed the suit and adopted a softer and more relaxed sil- houette, with bolder colours and contrasting textures. The two styles are not strictly dichotomous and, in not a few cases, they have been combined, producing unusual and ex- citing contrasts, for example, the use of richly textured and brightly decorated fabrics in formal tailoring. What is clear, though, is that more men are looking to the past for sarto- rial inspiration. They appear to believe that by reviving the fashions of their fathers and grandfathers, they will obtain, or at least project, the confidence and certainty of the men who wore them. In this, their attitudes towards dress isBenjamin Wild is a consulting lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London
and the author of A Life In Fashion: The Wardrobe of Cecil Beaton (Thames & Hudson, 2016).