I first discovered this discipline in my researches with the Antipodean League of Temporal Voyagers, assisting with their chronocartographical projections. The classic problems of time travel, well-known to physicists and logicians, remained stumpers – if it is possible to change the past, can one then paradoxically prevent one’s present actions? And why is there no evidence of any future travellers having passed by? If time travel were impossible, neither would be an issue – but the League’s experiments had demonstrated that time travel certainly was possible, and made for a charming Saturday outing at that.

With time, contemplation, and an endless parade of cheese sandwiches, I had a startling realisation – that the mystery suffered for being attempted by such strict rationalists as it had. Its framing assumed that all the variables were known, that motives and actions and consequences were perceptible and measurable – but this is history we’re talking about! If a historian says they’ve measured a motivation, you know it’s time for Nursie to come wheel them off to bed. History, like its practitioners, is vague, grimy and shrouded in mystery and inaccurate lecture timetables.

Another staple of history, like much of cautious academia, is the ornamentation of established ideas with small but striking adornments of revision – the buttonholes of progress, we might say. With this in mind, I recalled a popular theory: if we can travel to the past and still retain the present, then what has already happened – including what has happened to time travellers – is set, fixed, unchangeable. The present we now enjoy relies on time travellers having done their work, and could never have been otherwise! Our records show no evidence of time travellers, exactly… which proves that what time travellers there have been have avoided being recorded! What alterations they have made to the timeline (in order to keep it exactly the same) have been masterfully subtle, possibly by chance, or out of fear of discovery… or of those damnable time-moths!

*ahem* Sorry, became incautiously academic there. To return to my sound, valid, and extremely persuasive reasoning… the “closed loop” theory, as it’s titled by people a good deal clever than me, allows for time travel by predestining the actions of time travellers. In such a system, you can’t go back and prevent, say, World War II – and it’s entirely possible that your meddling in the affairs of the Weimar Republic actually contributed to causing it all along. Do you really want something like that on your conscience? Better to stay out of mid-twentieth-century politics altogether.

Now, you may well ask: does this mean I have no control over my own fate? If I would be powerless to act on past events, would it not be foolish to assume I had free will in the present? Perhaps, but, again, we must consider the possibility from a historic viewpoint. The closest we can come to knowing to determining for certain what may have happened to any given temporal voyager – barring chancing it ourselves – is through examining accounts and records the same as we would any other event. The future might be predetermined, but we cannot know it with certainty – and what difference is there between an uncertain future, and a certain future that is not known? Thus, Retroprophecy; the finding of future-knowledge in the study of the past, endowing visions and predictions with all the glorious uncertainty of historical fact.

The waters of this practice run deep, but I can think of an immediate application: the vetting of any potential time traveller against records of individuals of similar appearance, who have seemingly appeared from nowhere and who either disappeared just as mysteriously, or met nasty (possibly moth-related) ends. With the identification of these cases, and the blacklisting of any who may have been time travellers one doesn’t wish to become, I imagine the rates of death by Bronze Age-weaponry, matchlock pistol-fire and Borgia-related dismemberment could be reduced significantly. What do you think? If you have some ideas for Retroprophetic methods – or are even an established practitioner! – write to FrillyShirt here or at the address below, and share your views!

I am a Taoist Fop. It has come to my attention that this may well be a new branch of the ‘neo-Fop movement’ (if you will). As such, I thought I would write an introduction to the principles of Taoism, for gentleman of fashion. This is an introduction, and to follow will be parables detailing the three Virtues, concluded by a finale in which the student learns from the master, as is traditional.

This was inspired by Sir Frederick Chook, who in turn was first inspired by me at a salon. We seem to be muse to each other in this regard.

He flaunted the conventional and unconventional alike. A fop on a hill in Hyde Park, beneath a tree. Dressed in dark ruffles and long, dark hair that was blowing in the summer breeze, he sat in the shade on a gnarled root, smiling up into the branches with not a care in the world. Nor, it seemed, a thought.

It infuriated the Dandy. Already he dictated the fashion of the fashionable, and yet this slip of a creature, this…this damnable little beast from the bygone age of gauche…did not seem to care that he was offending the sensibilities of fashionable people. Taking care to be seen as he went up to the Fop on one of the paths criss-crossing the lawns, the Dandy had a sneer and a biting remark ready when the Fop looked up at him.

‘Good afternoon,’ the Fop said peacefully, opening his eyes. ‘Would you like to sit with me and enjoy it?’ As he shifted, the lace of his cuffs brushed over his hands; blue lace, really, how awful…

the Dandy tried not to notice how pale it made the Fop’s skin, or how glittering his eyes were against it. He didn’t expect a greeting, but recovered quickly, sneering.

‘A gentleman doesn’t waste his time getting dressed simply to roll about in the grass.’

‘Why not?’ The Fop’s question was not in the spirit of genuine naïveté, but seemed more…rhetoric. With an expansive gesture, the Fop leaned back again. ‘It’s a lovely afternoon, and a lovely spot to sit and enjoy it. The breeze blows the scent of the flowers, and the sun filters just enough through the leaves, and there were some rabbits investigating me from those hedges, not long ago. Nature adorns herself with orchids and birdsong and other beauties—why can I not?’

‘Because,’ the Dandy answered, ‘You’re doing it wrong.’

‘I suppose I am,’ the Fop conceded, leaning back against the tree and looking far less than abashed, as he closed his eyes again.

Now, this really wouldn’t do. the Dandy was used to objects of his scorn getting wounded, but agreeing with him? Not only agreeing, the Dandy corrected himself, since usually agreement meant conceding to how right he was. No, this boy was being terribly insolent. He snapped his cane against the path. The Fop opened his eyes again, and smiled.

‘You haven’t a brain in your head, have you?’ the Dandy snapped. The Fop only continued to smile.

‘I suppose I don’t,’ he said with the same infuriating peace.

‘Stop agreeing with me!’

This, at least, got a reaction; the Fop sat up and canted his head to one side, studying the Dandy for a moment, his lips pouted slightly in bemusement. ‘Your opinion is your own; who am I to say it is wrong or right?’ He spread his hands—his long, unfairly beautiful hands—and continued. ‘I am one person, you are one person. We may see things differently. You may have more brain than I. This is possible. You may see me as achieving beauty wrong. This is, also, possible.’

‘You make philosophy out of being spineless.’ The Dandy pointed his stick. ‘And don’t you dare “suppose”? I’m right, again!’

‘Are you asking after my philosophy, or merely stating your opinion?’

This gave the Dandy pause. To say he was merely stating his opinion would surely guarantee the Fop would nod and agree once more—something that was getting on the Dandy’s last nerve. Then again, to ask after it would be to signal that the Fop was worth his time—not something the Dandy wished to communicate with anyone who was watching.

In one fell swoop, this boy had robbed the Dandy of his power. Was power really so fragile?

‘Then what, pray, is your “philosophy”?, if not spinelessness?’

‘It is Eastern,’ the Fop answered, shifting position and standing, stretching. ‘The Tao, they call it. To achieve peace, one must be peaceful, and recognise the order of the universe. To go against the order is to invite unhappiness.’

‘You certainly go against the order of things.’

‘Do I?’ he asked, quietly. ‘Man must also find his place in the world, not attempt to shape the world’s will to his own. That will only result in sorrow for Man and World both.’ He put a hand against the tree, smiling to himself. ‘Of course, Tao is only a philosophy. One’s spirit must have a way to understand the workings, or attempt to.’

‘I still do not see how you follow the workings of the universe by being insolent and spineless.’

Thoughtful, the Fop put a finger to his lips. ‘When you told me I was doing beauty wrong, I agreed that you had such an opinion. I did not see the point in arguing over something that is essentially subjective. Water does not argue with a stone; when a stream comes upon a stone, it goes around. The water knows the stone will not move; so why waste energy trying to move it?’

‘Principle.’

‘Ah, I see. You think I should explain why I am the way I am, when accused of being wrong in my opinion.’ He shrugged. ‘I feel no need to debate opinions on such a lovely day.’ He began to take off his coat, hanging it absently on a branch as he vaulted into the tree.

the Dandy fell silent as he watched the Fop climb, slightly in shock. He mulled over the Fop’s words, and tried to understand how anyone could achieve peace by taking the path of least resistance. Looking up into the tree, where the Fop was now settling himself in a crook of limbs and branchs, the Dandy spoke again.

‘And how do you retain your self-respect, if you always bend to the will of others?’

‘I do not try to bend others to my will,’ the Fop answered. ‘It is not the same as bending oneself to the will of others. That is not the Way, either.’

The Dandy fell silent again. If one took the path of least resistance, yet did not bend his own will to others’ either, then what was left? One either had one’s will, or did not. Suppose, however, that what the Fop said was true: that there was some state of being that embodied both letting others have their will, and having one’s own. Well, that would require living in a vacuum, wouldn’t it?

‘Surely chaos is what you preach,’ the Dandy finally said to the Fop, looking back up into the tree. The Fop lay as a panther, head pillowed on his arms as he continued his peaceful contemplation of…nothing the Dandy could see.

‘Chaos? No, chaos only results when one goes against the will of the world.’ He smiled down at the Dandy. ‘Why do you say I preach chaos?’

‘One’s life is dictated by one’s reputation; one’s reputation is the will of others. One cannot live, therefore, without bending that will to one’s own desire.’

The Fop frowned slightly. ‘And if one is agreeable?’

‘One generally finds oneself the brunt of jokes.’

‘And if one then laughs at them?’

The Dandy stared, gaping, at the Fop. The Fop laughed softly, behind his hand.

“In these walks, two things he must have from his tailor: his clothes must fit, and the pockets, especially, must be made with reference to his out-door pursuits. They must accomidate his note-book and spy-glass; and so their width and depth was regulated by the size of the note-book.
-William Ellery Channing, Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist

“Margaret inaugurated, in 1839, her “Conversations” for the intellectual women of Boston, exploring such subjects as classical mythology and “What is Life?” Margaret Fuller presided over these bacchantic rites in homemade dresses that her adorers thought to be of Oriental magnificence, and at the climax of each session, when she had reduced the others to awed silence, she would close her eyes in an inspired trance and utter unfathomable words, which they thought eminated from some occult or Delphic wisdom.”
-Perry Miller, Margaret Fuller, American Romantic

To understand the idiosyncrasies of the suit, it helps to know its history. Through the nineteenth century, when upper- and middle-class men dressed for work, they wore long coats, with trousers in a different cloth. These coats are different to modern overcoats, but there’s enough to discuss there for another how-to altogether. Shorter coats were increasingly worn by workmen and for sport, and, by the twenties, short coats with matching trousers had become the norm for everyday wear.

That’s more than a hundred years of the one item of clothing being in fashion, so it’s not surprising that some weird trends, rules and customs have appeared along the way. Fit, for instance; it’s actually hard to define exactly how a suit should fit, because it’s so tied to your individual shape and size. A few base standards can be established. The trousers should be short enough that they only crease (‘break’) at the ankles a little when worn, if at all. The sleeves shouldn’t intrude on the hands. If creases appear when the coat is buttoned that aren’t there when it’s open, it’s probably too tight around the body. If it fits smooth, it’s probably all right.

Jackets come in two styles: single-breasted and double-breasted. Single-breasted jackets have one row of buttons at the front, like most anything – by far the most common style. Double-breasted jackets have two rows, and are a bit tricky to figure out until you mess with one up close. Usually, the row on the left is ornamental. The left side overlaps the right, fastening with an internal button, and the buttons on the right do up like a single-breasted.

Which buttons to actually fasten is one of the stranger problems you’ll find. The bottom button on a single-breasted jacket is almost never supposed to be done up. This isn’t just an affectation – the jacket is actually sewn so that, if you do up that button, it won’t fit. Why? Because it’s craaazy! Legend has it that King Edward VII invented the fashion, because he was so extraordinarily fat that he couldn’t get that button closed anyway. Is it true? Who knows! Suits from the late 19th century show every style of buttoning used – all buttons, just the top ones, just the bottom ones, none at all! – so it seems it was once quite experimental but has since been standardised. You still see jackets which fasten all the way down, but if you have one, you’ll know about it – it will be a special piece.

If you’re considering the multitudinous merits of a waistcoat, a good fit is still important. A waistcoat should sit smoothly and snugly around the body, without folds or ripples appearing – especially around the armholes and the waistline. Most waistcoats have a strap you can adjust at the back, but that’s just for fine-tuning – it can’t make a good fit out of a bad one! You might want to hold your trousers up with braces rather than a belt, so that your waistcoat doesn’t get all bumpy. Don’t worry – even if your trousers don’t have buttons for braces, it’s genuinely the work of a moment to sew them on. Finally, I can’t force you to wear your trousers so that the waistcoat covers up their waistline, but it does look so much better!

Well, that’s Part 1 of How To Wear A Suit for beginners! Best of luck and keep and eye for Part 2!