Vol. 3, Issue 34, September 5, 2004

Dear Etiquetteer:

I realize this question is late in the season, but I just came upon your reply to "Blue Boy" about wearing white shoes with a blue seersucker suit for the Perfect Summer Gentleman Presentation.  We are quite used to costuming here in New Orleans, and I invoke the sartorial stereotype of a Southern lawyer on occasion, particularly in the heat of August, by wearing seersucker.  Like Blue Boy, I wear black dress shoes and a black belt with my blue seersucker suit.  If I were to seek the perfect presentation by wearing my white bucks, may I wear a belt? (If so, what color? I understand that a white belt is forbidden.) Or should I simply wear white braces in lieu of a belt?     

Dear Southern Lawyer:

Etiquetteer is quite fond of the costuming of New Orleans, but this is the first time Etiquetteer has heard of the seersucker aspect of it rather than the beads-lamé-and-feathers aspect. To Etiquetteer, the stereotype of a Southern lawyer (as so brilliantly played by Charles Ludlam in “The Big Easy,” for instance) usually includes suspenders color-coordinated with one’s tie (preferably a bow tie from Beau Ties Ltd.) White suspenders are best left to be worn with your white tie to an embassy ball. The best kind of suspenders is the kind with leather tabs that fasten onto suspender buttons sewn inside the waistband of one’s trousers. More often than not, these days one sees suspenders with tiny metal clamps instead; in the words of the late Veda Pierce, these can appear “distinctly middle class,” but since the middle class usually takes the most trouble over good manners, you yourself may decide if that symbolism suits your image or not.

Etiquetteer was always brought up with the rule that leather goods match. So ladies match their shoes and handbags and gentlemen their shoes and belts. In that horrifying era of unflattering fashion known as the Seventies (which Etiquetteer defines as 1972-1981, when Etiquetteer was a teenager) Etiquetteer shudders to remember how often he appeared wearing white vinyl slip-ons with matching belt and plaid jeans. Happily those days are past . . . at least one hopes they have. If you can find a white belt that isn’t too shiny, Etiquetteer would permit it. Etiquetteer dearly hopes that in your Southern Lawyer Evocation you also include a straw panama or boater as well as a pocket square color coordinated with your tie. Nothing could be more dashing.

All this talk of seersucker makes Etiquetteer wistful, as the approach of Labor Day signals the annual Retirement of the Seersucker and White Bucks. While there is no ceremony connected with this annual ritual, Etiquetteer would not be averse to downing a glass of champagne to toast the official End of Summer as the seersucker is dispatched to the cleaners one last time.

All this talk of suits makes Etiquetteer want to share a few thoughts on bodily adornment after witnessing an unusual fashion juxtaposition. At a recent Town Meeting, Etiquetteer was startled to see a young man in a crisp business suit with flawlessly pressed shirt and silk necktie. “And what is so startling about this?” you might be tempted to ask Etiquetteer. Only this: that this young man had about half a dozen facial piercings: a hoop in the center of his lower lip, small dumbbell piercings at each end of both eyebrows, and what looked like a small hoop between his nostrils. Not only that, he had also pierced his earlobes with those black rubber loop things so that a three-quarter-inch hole was formed. Have you ever looked through someone’s ear? It’s disconcerting.

You may be surprised to learn that Etiquetteer has no quarrel with piercing as a personal adornment (though it isn’t one Etiquetteer is likely to attempt himself). But with piercing (and tattoos) it becomes particularly difficult to follow the Coco Chanel Dictum: put on everything you think is right, and then take one piece off. At least this young man was pierced symmetrically and didn’t mix gold and silver, but all that shining metal distracted attention away from him. Please, remember that jewelry contributes to your own radiance and should not outshine it.

Find yourself at a manners crossroads and don't know where to go? Ask Etiquetteer at query@etiquetteer.com!

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