How
To Be Chap
Published on March
15th, 2016
The Chap has created
the greatest tome on how to become a Chap, ever. How To Be Chap is
published by Berlin-based English-language publisher Gestalten, whose
stable already includes such chappish titles as I Am Dandy and From
Tip To Toe – The Essential Men’s Wardrobe.
How To Be Chap is a
sumptuous, heavily illustrated coffee table book spanning the first
fifteen years of the Chap’s existence, as a magazine, a lifestyle,
a social group, a series of events and protests and ultimately a
collection of extremely well-dressed and amusing people. Large-format
photographs document such key events in the history of this cult
movement, from the very first Chap protest, Civilise the City in
2001, to the most recent, the Give Three-Piece a Chance protest
outside Abercrombie & Fitch on Savile Row.
How To Be Chap sets
out to document and record every area of a Chap’s life, from what
he has for breakfast to where he goes on holiday. The modern-day
Grand Tour is recommended, in which a Chap must acquire essential
gentlemanly accoutrements from various locations around the globe.
The key Chappish writers, from both sides of the Atlantic, are all
profiled, along with the top ten cinema films a Chap should have in
his collection. His home, his pets, his marriage and his approach to
childcare are all examined in thorough detail, with lavish
photography and illustration throughout.
Photographs and text
revisit the Chap’s many fashion plates, taken in such diverse
locations as Gunpowder Mills, Essex and Brighton’s Peter Pan crazy
golf course. The key figures in the Chap movement, from Vic Darkwood
to Fleur de Guerre and Michael Attree, are profiled, along with Chap
interviewees such as Sir Patrick Moore, Chris Eubank and Gilbert &
George. If you have followed the Chap for the last 15 years and wish
to reflect on those years and what they meant to you, or if you are
new to the term “Chappish” and wish to inform yourself, you will
not find a more suitable tome than this.
10
Questions with Chap Expert Gustav Temple
The Co-Editor of Our
New Book Explains How to be Chap
Posted by
Gestalten—03/2016
Style authority
Gustav Temple co-founded the British magazine The Chap in 1999 to
celebrate the classic English gentleman and save our world from
sartorial collapse. In our recent release How to be Chap, for which
Temple served as co-editor, we follow the definitive Chap expert as
he explores how a chap dresses, where he goes on vacation, which
sports he plays (cricket) and which ones he doesn’t (everything
else). Get to know Gustav Temple in our interview below and in our
new book How to be Chap.
You have edited the
eponymous Chap magazine for years. How and when did you decide to
write a book?
Having produced The
Chap for fifteen years, I thought it was time to set the whole story
down in book form. It has been a very eventful 15 years, filled with
public events, protests against contemporary culture, the growing of
the chap Olympics, and the many people who have passed through the
pages of The Chap either as photographed models or in written form.
Is a person born a
Chap or can you become a Chap?
Anyone can become a
Chap. The book points out the differences between gentlemen of the
past and the modern-day chap and how accidents like birth, blood,
nationality, race, and even gender make no difference whatsoever
towards becoming a Chap.
How long have you
been a Chap?
Since the day I
first looked around me at the world and thought, “These people
aren’t very well dressed. Someone needs to take a good look at
gentlemen’s clothing from the past to the present and make sure
nothing is thrown out in the rush for everyone to become trendy and
cool.” That must have been when I was about 12.
What can you tell us
about the Chap Olympiad?
It is an annual
celebration of sporting ineptitude. It is a competition in which the
losers and pathetically non-athletic in life can shine for one day—as
long as they are extremely well-dressed. The Chap Olympiad rewards
immaculate trousers, well-groomed hair, and perfectly-knotted cravats
rather than sporting prowess. The events are impossible to win unless
one uses caddish cunning and aristocratic skullduggery.
What is the best
thing about being a Chap?
Knowing that you are
dressing in a way that is both timeless and setting higher standards
for the future; knowing that your presence is likely to be welcomed
and even celebrated wherever you may go; knowing that you are making
a difference to society—a social and sartorial difference.
Can you tell us some
Do’s and Don’ts for Chaps?
The Do’s: always
wear at least one article of clothing made from tweed; try to be
polite to all people at all times; practice raising your hat and one
of your eyebrows rakishly—keep everything else on your face and
your clothing absolutely still; shake hands when it seems most
inappropriate—for example with your doctor or dentist.
The Don’ts: wear
sports clothing unless you are doing sport; participate in any sport
other than cricket; leave the house with an open-collared shirt;
modify your behaviour according to whom you are speaking to—treat
everyone with equal good manners and respect; accept low standards;
set foot in Starbucks or McDonalds; dress down for an occasion—always
dress up and aim to be the best-dressed person there.
How does a typical
day for a Chap look?
A Chap’s day
begins rather late, for he usually rises no earlier than midday.
After breakfast, it is time to go in search of the day’s first
cocktail. Events after that can sometimes become rather blurred, but
he will eventually end up in the premises of one or more of his
tailors—and possibly his glove maker, depending on the time of
year. In the winter, a Chap spends a lot of time choosing a new
umbrella.
What can you tell us
about the Chap-led protest of Savile Row’s Abercrombie and Fitch?
Why was the store’s opening important?
The opening of
Abercrombie and Fitch on Savile Row signified both the end of an
era—300 years of bespoke tailoring on one London street—and the
beginning of a new era of big chain stores dominating the entire
world. We felt that somebody had to take a stand against this and
make the point that capital cities benefit from tourism precisely
because they have unusual things to offer tourists like Savile
Row—not because they have a few chain stores selling ripped
T-shirts and overpriced hoodies for middle-aged men.
What surprising
interests align themselves with being a Chap? What might surprise
someone about Chaps?
It might surprise
someone to see how diverse chaps are. They might expect to see a load
of middle-aged white men in tweed jackets, but the truth would be a
lot more variety both in types of people and their clothing. We
believe that the Chap style is actually far more varied and
individual than the way most people dress today. Someone encountering
a group of Chaps for the first time would be struck by how different
each Chap or Chapette looks. They might also be surprised at how
decadent they are; because Chaps adopt the social and dietary habits
of 50-100 years ago, this makes them seem rather hedonistic by
today’s standards.
What advice would
you give to youngsters thinking of being Chaps themselves?
Firstly, I would
advise them of course to read How to be Chap from cover to cover,
where they will get all the sartorial, social and lifestyle tips they
will need in order to conduct a complete overhaul of how they
currently live. Secondly, they will have to throw all their hoodies,
T-shirts, jeans, trainers, and baseball caps into the dustbin.
Thirdly, they will have to learn to avoid all high-street shops and
locate the nearest tailor’s premises, as well as the nearest
selection of vintage shops in which their clothes can be bought. If
they are women, they will have to learn quite complicated skills with
make-up and hair styling—but there are plenty of examples to copy
in the book, which features just as many photographs of
splendidly-attired ladies as it does of gentlemen.
It's curious how the book makes virtually no mention of the magazine.
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