Whatever Happened to Hardy Amies?

Dig this briefcase I bought at Book Off a couple months ago. It's the best one I've ever had. It's solid and big enough I could carry an outfit or two if I wanted in addition to a laptop. And it was only around 2000 yen, or twenty dollars. Much less if you consider how far the yen has fallen recently.

Book Off sells used stuff but Japanese people treat their things really well, it seems like new. I was deciding between this one, which is Hardy Amies, and a Samsonite in a similar colour, more of a yellow green than this one's blue green. Ironically, in his book, ABC of Men's Fashion, Amies himself said, "It should be noted that greens with a brown cast--i.e. olive green--are much more becoming than blue greens such as bottle green which is as ugly as its name."

And the book has a blue green cover!

So, yeah, I liked the case so much I bought his book. First published in 1964, it features Amies opinions and advice ordered with alphabetised headings. Not everything holds up--see, for example, his vision of the man of the future:

Under the entry for "Brim" Amies writes, "Today the tendency is to have as narrow a brim as can be achieved without looking ridiculous." I would say "ridiculous" has in fact been achieved in the above picture.

He has plenty of smart things to say, though. He has a lot of praise for Chelsea boots.

When Chelsea boots first appeared in the late 1950s it quickly became certain they were the most appropriate form of footwear to wear with narrow trousers and formal suits. When a new style is tried because the customer thinks it is fashionable or amusing and he then finds in wearing that it is practical, you can be pretty sure that you are going to get an established trend. The style is practical because elastic sided boots are very easy to put on and off as time and trouble for tying laces are avoided.

Which sure is useful in Japan when you have to take off your shoes all the time. That's why I exclusively wear Chelsea boots outdoors now:

Also because I do a lot of walking in the countryside and the rain. The brown ones are waterproof. The black ones, which I bought at H&M a year ago, are already wearing out with big holes in the bottom.

Amies could be witty. Under "American Styling":

The American will not be uncomfortable. This has led him to an insistence on lightweight cloths which in their turn can only be used successfully in suits the lines of which are more loose than restricting. From this they have developed a typical look in urban clothes. Dark in cloth and usually white as to linen; and completed either by a tie too violent in colour or pattern (rarer now) or going to the other extreme of a plain black knitted tie.

Whilst this conservatism is often admirable for the middle aged it can be criticised as being completely unadventurous. The American seems to have a horror of being different; except in play clothes where he is quite happy to be a horror.

Amies, who designed clothes for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Queen Elizabeth II, died in 2003. His company went bankrupt in 2019. I guess it goes to show how important the head is to the body.