MASCULINE MODES.
By Beau Brummel.
The news that the price of lounge suits will have risen to twenty-four pounds by the autumn has created something of a sartorial panic in the City and the West End.
Famous old wardrobes are being broken up on all sides by owners anxious to acquire fresh clothing before it is too late, whilst the small properties thus created find eager tenants amongst those who cannot afford a new outfit at all.
Many tailors who have built new suits are beginning to dispose of them on three or five year repairing leases, and possession of these may sometimes be secured from the present occupiers on payment of a substantial premium.
Gentlemen possessing both town and country sets of suitings are in many cases letting the latter in order to come up to London for the season, whilst others are resorting to various economical artifices to meet the crisis. Plus four golf knickers, let down, make admirable wedding trousers for a short man, and many are the old college blazers dyed black and doing duty as natty pea-jackets.
In the City, of course, fustian and corduroys are almost the only wear, and there is much divergence of opinion on the Stock Exchange as to the best knot for spotted red neckerchiefs and the proper way of tying the difficult little bow beneath the knees.
In Parliament, where of course the old costly fashions have long been out of vogue, the change is equally noticeable. Lord Robert Cecil, for instance, habitually wears the white canvas suit in which Mr. Augustus John painted him; Lord Birkenhead mounts the Woolsack in an old cassock, which, as he points out, not only allows a very scanty attire underneath it, but gives him particular confidence in elucidating St. Matthew; while the Prime Minister himself set off for San Remo in a simple set of striped sackcloth dittos. Many Members are having their old pre-war morning coats turned; Mr. Winston Churchill in machine-gun overalls, Mr. Mallaby-Deeley self-dressed, Sir Edward Carson in a simple union suit, are conspicuous figures, and Mr. Horatio Bottomley by a whimsical yet thrifty fancy often attends the House in the humble attire of the Weaver in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Even in the Welsh collieries it is becoming the habit to go down the pits in rough home-spun, and reserving the top hat, morning coat and check trousers for striking in.